RON DERBY: Has Tiger Brands learnt anything after a truly terrible year?
Not many boards, let alone a CEO, would survive such a year without severe scrutiny and criticism from investors and other stakeholders
Lawrence MacDougall lives a charmed life if you consider what the CEO of Tiger Brands has survived this year, and seemingly will continue to survive. His company produced a product that caused the deaths of about 200 people. Ensuring food safety in a business whose job it is to sell food should make up the biggest share of the key performance areas for a CEO and his board, next to inspiring a turnaround in the company's fortunes after an awful decade. As such, clearly the management of Tiger Brands has failed in the first metric, and tragically this has been marked by fatalities in the poorest segment of South African society. Where is the accountability, or are standards different in private-sector boardrooms? The lives that were lost in this listeriosis outbreak were in the most vulnerable segments of society, where the cheap protein in viennas and polony is the most affordable. On the second metric, that of inspiring a turnaround in fortunes, it seems that a long road lies ahead....
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