Economic transformation is not a dilemma exclusive to SA, former finance minister Nhlanhla Nene said at the launch of the Financial Mail’s 2016 edition of The Little Black Book last week.Addressing about 200 members of SA’s black business elite, Nene pointed out that race wasn’t the only barrier to transformation."[The issue of] who rises to the top of any society to run its public- and private-sector institutions is one of the most enduring questions," he said.In the US, for example, religious affiliation used to be a determining factor, as Protestants, particularly Episcopalians and Presbyterians, were far more likely than people of other faiths to rise to the top of the business world."Then higher education took over ... At the start of the 20th century half the top [US] executives [were people whose] fathers held middle-class jobs and another fifth [had] even more affluent heritages," said Nene. The result, he said, was that women and African Americans found themselves stuck at ...
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