For 60 years, Sonja and Thomas Bata shared a marriage and one of the most formidable partnerships in Canadian business. Mr. Bata, patriarch of a global shoe empire, Bata Ltd., died at 93 in early September. Mrs. Bata, 82, carries on his work - and her own large legacy as museum founder, philanthropist and design enthusiast. She is the force behind a lecture series and scholarships in her husband's name to focus on "responsible capitalism." The annual lectures will alternate between York University's Schulich School of Business and Tomas Bata University, located in the Bata homeland of the Czech Republic and named for Mr. Bata's father.
Why this lecture series?
During his life my husband tried to teach people what responsible capitalism should be like. He always said that business is really a service to society and the heads of businesses have many stakeholders - not just customers and employees but the communities, even the countries, they operated in.
We will find speakers to talk on how important it is to have proper corporate ethics - especially after seeing what has happened recently in the U.S. If you have totally unbridled capitalism and unbridled entrepreneurship, things can go very wrong.
Isn't the capitalist's primary responsibility to earn profit?
I don't agree. The Bata Shoe Organization operates in many countries - for example, today in Zimbabwe. We have been losing money there for a long time but we have people employed there. If we were to close down and just sell out, these people would lose employment. We have difficulties paying them today - they get paid in food and other things. But we feel a little bit responsible for the people there and to help them.
Has the company pushed for change in Zimbabwe, which has had an autocratic leader for decades?
We try not to get mixed up with politics. In fact, my husband always said, 'Governments come, governments go. We are here to stay.' We know something about shoemaking and that's what we want to do. Through our knowledge, we want to make better shoes that people can afford to buy. That's how we want to serve the market and we will not take any part in politics.
Why are you still involved in Batawa, the former company town in Eastern Ontario where Bata Shoe closed its plant in 1999?
My son is in charge of our international organization and it was obvious we had to close the factory because it couldn't be competitive any more. He wanted to sell the land and there is a small community there. I'm on the board and I told him it was the right decision for him because we could not have the cash drain on the organization. However, I wanted the first right to buy.
So I bought it myself. I want to create a small sustainable community, and we have an official plan that has been approved by the province.
Is that why you carry a roll of design drawings with you?
I try to give the project some leadership. All my life I have been a little bit of a dreamer and idealist; for me, life is about planting seeds. It may be that long after I am dead, the seeds will really take off, but I enjoy it. If you think of cityscapes - of Le Corbusier's design of Chandigarh in India - the plan left its mark. The city has a certain shape where you can see it wasn't just by accident that things happened. To me, it is fascinating to do this groundwork.
Aren't you just reliving your time as an architecture student?
As a teenager I was sure I was going to be one of the great architects in this world. Then I got married in 1946 when the world really collapsed a little bit for my husband. It was obvious the Iron Curtain would come down, and he had enormous legal problems even inside his family.
There was a shortage of money but he had a wonderful team of passionate employees who had left the Czech Republic, and they were going to rebuild the organization. To be a member of that team was a fascinating thing. Fortunately my husband was very keen I should be part of it.
What did you do in the team?
I was more on the product development side and store design and merchandising, and he was the financial and strategic planner, and the production man. We had a wonderful marriage together. I have been very lucky in my life.
We had our offices next to each other for over 60 years, and shared our secretarial staff.
Why not stop now at 82 and smell the roses?
How boring! Why should I? I am full of ideas. I'm at the age when I do the things I really enjoy. It is a wonderful time when you're old enough you don't need to run after jobs, you don't need to impress anybody. You can really have your own opinion - and I always have very strong opinions about lots of things.
When are the times when you most miss your husband?
All the time, all the time. But all is fine in life if you work very hard and you concentrate on achieving a goal. Then you don't think about other things, and that is terribly important. And I'm sure that is what my husband would have wanted me to do.
***
Sonja Bata
Titles: Chair of the Bata Shoe Foundation
Board member, Bata Shoe Organization
Founding chair, Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto
Born: 1926 in Switzerland
Education: Studied architecture at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich
Career highlights
1946: Sonja Wettstein marries Czech shoe magnate Thomas Bata, now living in Canada after fleeing Nazi invasion of homeland.
1940s-1960s: The Batas rebuild global shoe business.
1979: Establishes Bata Shoe Museum Foundation to manage her vast shoe collection.
1995: Opens Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto.
2005: Buys former Bata shoe plant in Batawa, Ont.