Busa head Tanya Cohen bows out of ‘complex, challenging’ role

NICOLA MILTZ

“I’m taking a break, nothing more, nothing less,” Cohen told the SA Jewish Report via cell phone during a flight from Johannesburg to the United Kingdom on Tuesday night, one day after the surprise announcement was made.

“It has been a very busy, challenging role which left me with very little time for myself. I want to spend time with my family, and think about what’s next,” said this Ladysmith-born (in KwaZulu-Natal) Zulu-speaking business leader.

Cohen’s announcement – six months early – comes after two and a half years at the helm of Busa. Her decision to step down has been made at a time when business could benefit from Cohen’s level-headed and pragmatic approach as President Cyril Ramaphosa attempts to kickstart the engine of the economy.

Busa is considered the apex institution representing organised business, with a range of members: professional, sectoral, chambers, and South Africa’s largest corporates. During the final years of the destructive Jacob Zuma administration, Busa called for accountability and ethical leadership in government.

The organisation has worked with labour, government, and the community on the national minimum wage and amendments to labour laws at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac), and it partnered closely with President Cyril Ramaphosa at the recent Jobs Summit and Investment Conference.

In a statement issued this week, Cohen said, “I have accomplished what I set out to do: reposition Busa as South Africa’s apex business organisation and a credible, strategic, and critical partner to government and other social partners at Nedlac. It was an opportune time to bow out.”

Cohen and her colleagues at Busa worked to influence policy and legislative development for “an enabling environment for inclusive growth and employment”.

The Busa board said this week that Cohen was “an exceptionally capable leader” who, during her tenure, managed to reposition Busa and build strategic relationships with government, organised labour, and the community.

Journalist and former Business Day editor Tim Cohen (no relation) wrote in Daily Maverick this week that it had been a monstrously difficult few years for government-business relations that had taken its toll on Cohen.

Expanding on this, Cohen told the SA Jewish Report that “it was a very complex, diverse role”, dealing with all sorts of sectors and sizes of businesses, and involving a lot of navigation and engagement with government, trade unions, business, and the community.

Busa said that Cohen would be taking a sabbatical ahead of pursuing new opportunities.

Asked what she had in mind, Cohen said she was thinking of studying, but was looking forward to taking time off and exploring her options.

Cohen, who grew up on a smallholding in Ladysmith, attended Klipriver Primary School and later Girls Collegiate in Pietermaritzburg, which was across the road from the Pietermaritzburg Hebrew Congregation where she and the two other Jewish students would sometimes go.

Today, Cohen lives in Kyalami with her husband, the well-respected Johannesburg radiologist Dr Jonathan Hack, and their two sons. The couple met when they were students at the University of the Witwatersrand where Cohen studied a BA LLB majoring in law and economics, and later did her Masters.

As a former chairperson of the governing body of the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, and having held the role of employee-relations executive at Woolworths, Cohen was well placed for her role at Busa.

During her time at Busa, she said she had the “extraordinary privilege” of working with capable and committed people, be it within Busa and its membership base, or within government, labour, community, institutions, and the media.

Some of those people, she said, were from the South African Jewish community, which “punches way above its weight” in terms of its contribution and commitment to economic transformation.

She spoke of key individuals who had made a lasting impression. “There are some incredible people in our community who are doing phenomenal work. People like former Investec Group Chief Executive Stephen Koseff; Discovery Chief Executive Adrian Gore; Colin Coleman, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs in sub-Saharan Africa; Netcare Chief Executive Richard Friedland; and Professor Michael Katz to name a few, and the many others, maybe not as visible, but highly capable in the social-impact space who are doing amazing things.”

A common commitment to South Africa’s prosperity, its people, and the rule of law had always prevailed, she said.

According to Busa, some of Cohen’s notable achievements include hosting the inaugural Business Economic Indaba, positioning Busa on policy game-changers such as the future of work, health, land, energy, the national minimum wage, labour relations stability agreements, and the Jobs Summit Framework Agreement.

If she could wave a magic wand, her wish would be that South Africa could have “a high quality education system for lifelong learning”. This, in addition to a rapidly transformed and growing economy that creates lots of jobs for young people in particular.