Mark Lamberti has been an entrepreneurial hero for me for much of my commercial life; I have admired his skill and determination and success. However, these results have been in the mould of the typical South African businessman, and I have recently started to understand the costs to others at which they have been largely achieved. Much of our commercial success is achieved on the backs of poor and marginalised groups. Without a pool of poor, unjustly treated people there is no real likelihood of we privileged people becoming or remaining wealthy. Within Imperial this culture is particularly in evidence, and no doubt Lamberti fitted in very well. There is no place in many of our corridors of old school networks for women or people who look and talk differently from ourselves. Lamberti would be well advised to settle promptly with the lady whose career he came so close to ruining, and take advice on how to exclude institutional racism from his business and personal style, otherwise h...
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