At a glance, Mr Michael Steinberg and his wife, Sue, could pass for just another elderly white couple. And it came to pass that the couple visited the country recently without much fanfare as it happens with millionaires of the same stature.
Mr Steinberg, 78, is a respected personality on the American corporate scene, wielding considerable influence with a sizable fortune to his name. Moreover, he and his wife are big-hearted philanthropists supporting several charitable activities that target the fight against HIV and Aids in Africa.
Dressed simply, Mr Steinberg is in his element, chatting up a group of school children that have gathered around him. Next to him is Sue in a pair of huge sunglasses. With no single bodyguard in sight, the couple does not display the snobbery that is so common with the high and mighty. They are a study in humility.
Chief executive officer
Seven years after he retired as chairman and chief executive officer of Macy’s West, a successful American supermarket chain, Mr Steinberg took up directorship of Fossil Incorporated, distributors of fashion watches, leather goods and sunglasses.
Mr Michael Steinberg and his wife, Sue, after they commissioned the Comprehensive Care Centre at Suba District Hospital. Photo: Jacob Owiti
Fossil, which is planning to add a line of leather key holders, money clips and wallets to its merchandise range, has 14 subsidiaries in the US, Germany, The Netherlands and Hong Kong.
Mr Steinberg sits on both the compensation and the nominating and corporate governance committees of the company, which has a global distribution with retail outlets in 50 countries.
Born in South Africa, he fled his motherland in the late 50s, after his politician father fell out with the then authorities. “My father was a leader of the Liberal Party in South Africa at the height of apartheid in the country, and when it was declared illegal, we had to flee to avoid being victimised,” he said in an interview.
Then in his early 20s, Mr Steinberg headed to America where he worked his way up to the top of the Macy’s West ladder. According to Internet sources, his tenure at the helm of the chain was marked with an unprecedented growth in sales and profits. His contemporaries describe him as ‘‘a hands-on executive, who understands merchandising and building successful teams’’.
Now an American citizen, he only makes rare trips to Africa. “I have an emotional attachment to Africa and I visit whenever possible to reconnect with the motherland,” he says. About four weeks ago, the Steinbergs led a group of tycoons to Suba District Hospital to commission a Sh14.6m ultra-modern building that they helped a local organisation, Faces — Family Aids Care and Education Services — put up.
Faces was born out of collaboration between the Kenya Medical Research Institute and the University of California in San Francisco, USA. The building, dubbed the Comprehensive Care Centre, is set to be a one-stop healthcare facility housing an outpatient clinic, a counselling centre, a tuberculosis clinic, laboratories, a pharmacy, a resource centre, and an administrative wing.
The siting of the facility in Suba District, which has the highest HIV and Aids prevalence rate in the country, is a major step in the fight against the pandemic. The district has a 30 per cent prevalence rate, against the national figure of 5.1 per cent, according to the latest statistics released by the National Aids Control Council.
The trip to Suba by Mr Steinberg and his friends was not his only trip to Kenya, though.
Her maiden trip
“I have been to Kenya about three times; the first time, I was in Mombasa, while fleeing from my native South Africa and I later travelled to Nairobi once,” he says. It was, however, the first time that he was in the country for a considerable period of time. The party was planning an excursion to Maasai Mara after an overnight stay in Suba to tour projects being undertaken by Faces.
For Mrs Steinberg, this was her maiden trip to Kenya. Apart from supporting HIV and Aids initiatives in the country, the Steinbergs also support similar projects in South Africa.
“Every year, we make trips to projects that we support, and last year, we went to tour an Aids project that we sponsor in Kwa Zulu in South Africa,” he says. The couple’s HIV and Aids projects are inspired by the suffering of people with Aids, which, he says, is the biggest challenge that humanity has ever faced. “Aids is not an impossible problem as it can be prevented and dealt with to reduce it to levels as low as it is in the developed world,” he adds.
According to Mr Steinberg, this can be done if resources were channelled to this cause. Mrs Steinberg says that their involvement with projects that fight HIV and Aids was inspired by loss of many of their friends to the disease. It is then that they joined hands with the University of California to fight the disease.
In 1999, Mr Steinberg became the first recipient of the annual Visionary Leadership award from the University’s Aids Research Institute. During the awards presentation, where five other business and political leaders from San Francisco were feted, Mr Steinberg was recognised as ‘a creative retailer, who saw the power of combining efforts from the corporate industry with those from academic researchers and community organisations in the fight against HIV and Aids’.
It was during his tenure at the helm of Macy’s West that the supermarket chain began an annual fashion show, dubbed Macy’s Passport, which has been recognised for its role in raising funds to champion the fight against Aids.
Over the years, Macy’s Passport has raised and donated over 20 million dollars to Aids causes. Apart from being active in HIV and Aids work, Mr Steinberg has been doing consultancy work in business since retiring.
The philanthropist does not indulge in golf, and other kinds of leisure associated with corporate chiefs of his ilk. An arts and theatre enthusiast, Mr Steinberg attributes his rapid rise to join the enviable club of movers and shakers in the America corporate world, to hard work and incessant practice.
By Cosmas Butunyi
Copyright Nation Media Group 2007
