ANGLO AMERICAN / TONY TRAHAR. Tracing tree rings.

(From Financial Mail)

Byline: David Williams

ANGLO AMERICAN/TONY TRAHAR Tracing tree rings I have travelled first class since I was 27 but I can get used to business class! Tony Trahar completed 33 years at Anglo American last week, and his retirement as CEO represents the end of an era. He could turn out to be the last South African to run the global resources giant that was founded in SA in 1917 by Ernest Oppenheimer.

Trahar is certainly the last CEO who was introduced to Anglo by working at the side of senior executives. In an interview with the FM on February 28, his last day as an executive at 44 Main Street, he recalled that Anglo would pick talented young men for those positions, and give you little money or responsibility and they watched how you got on. About one in five stayed. Trahar recalls how impressed he was with that generation of Anglo leaders. They opposed apartheid and the leadership shown was crucial. They …