In the News–Leadership & Strategy
Nightmare on Investor Relations Street
Mary Lowengard, Institutional Investor, January 5, 2018
A specter is haunting corporate America: sexual harassment. Forget being miffed over MiFID II, daunted by data security, or panicked over product liability. The next Big Crisis that will be keeping investor relations officers awake at night is sexual harassment, and it’s coming fast.
As sexual harassment has been prevalent in corporate life for decades, why would it surface now? It all started with Bill — Cosby, that is — says crisis management consultant Davia Temin, founder and head of Temin and Co. The Cosby affair demonstrated the powerful effect of victims breaking out of their “silos of silence and shame,: despite the risk of wrecking their careers. She describes what’s coming for corporate America as a “tsunami,” fortified by years of suffering and accelerated by social media. […read more]
CEOs’ Advancing Age Forces Investors to Reckon With Succession
Jeff Green, Bloomberg, December 19, 2017
The same-day deaths of two aging chief executive officers — industry icons in railroading and banking — show why some investors and governance experts want companies to disclose more about succession plans and the health of their executives.
CSX Corp.’s Hunter Harrison, 73, died Saturday, one day after news of his medical leave pushed the railroad’s shares down the most in six years. M&T Bank Corp. said Robert Wilmers passed away “suddenly and unexpectedly” at age 83 — just months after the death of his own heir apparent.
These earthly departures underscore the privacy, governance and legal issues entangled in one fact of shifting demographics: As the U.S. population ages, so too do the chieftains of Corporate America.
“What we’re facing is the new paradigm of work,” said Davia Temin, head of the New York-based crisis-management firm Temin & Co. “When people are in the zone of what they love to do, most of them are not going to voluntarily give that up. That means that people will work later, and maybe with a little bit more of an illusion that death won’t apply to them.” […read more]
Liberty Tax Sex Scandal Draws Investor Suit Targeting Hewitt
Jef Feeley and Anders Melin, Bloomberg, December 13, 2017
Some Liberty Tax Inc. investors have lost patience with founder John Hewitt. A pension fund is asking a judge to order Hewitt to relinquish his controlling stake in the national tax-preparation service after an internal review found that while running the company, he had sex in his office and hired relatives of female employees with whom he’d had romantic relationships.
The Liberty case is just the latest in a string of firings of prominent men as sexual harassment accusations shake public figures in fields as diverse as the media, the U.S. Congress and restaurant chains. Even company founders such as Uber’s Travis Kalanick and the Weinstein Co.’s Harvey Weinstein have lost their jobs following harassment allegations.
Company boards are increasingly being drawn into the fray. “This is opening up a whole new area of liability for corporations,” said Davia Temin, president and CEO of Temin & Co., a New York-based crisis management company. “They have to seriously look at the risks this behavior poses to the company.” […read more]
Crisis of the Week: NBC News Faces Questions After Lauer Firing
Ben DiPietro, The Wall Street Journal’s Risk & Compliance Journal, December 12, 2017
NBC News is in crisis after it fired longtime “Today” show anchor Matt Lauer after he was accused of sexual misconduct. The move came hours before the magazine Variety published a story detailing some of Mr. Lauer’s alleged actions with female staffers. The day after the firing, two more women came forward to accuse Mr. Lauer, who apologized and said: “Some of what is being said about me is untrue or mischaracterized, but there is enough truth in these stories to make me feel embarrassed and ashamed.”
NBC News President Andy Lack issued a statement on Nov. 29, saying the “detailed complaint” against Mr. Lauer was a “clear violation of our company’s standards.” He said the priority is to create a workplace environment where everyone feels safe, adding “any actions that run counter to our core values are met with consequences, no matter who the offender.” At the time of the firing, the network said it didn’t know of any complaints against Mr. Lauer during his time at NBC, only to later say no complaints had been made to “current management.” Mr. Lack sent a memo to staff on Dec. 1, saying the company is reviewing Mr. Lauer’s prior behavior and that it needs to “build a culture of greater transparency, openness and respect.”
The experts break down how well NBC News handled this crisis from a communications standpoint.
“NBC’s handling of the Matt Lauer affair is a fascinating example of the almost-triumph of alt-fact and spin,” said Davia Temin. “In the end, though, it turned out to be a serious breach of public trust.” […read more]
Met Opera Grapples With Sex Accusations Amid Financial Challenges
Jennifer Smith, The Wall Street Journal, December 4, 2017
The Metropolitan Opera already was struggling to get its financial house in order when the bombshell hit: Multiple allegations of sexual abuse by famed conductor James Levine, who served as the company’s music director for four decades.
Those accusations, which led the Met this past weekend to suspend its relationship with Mr. Levine and launch an internal probe, could complicate its funding woes.
“The right road is to get ahead of it,” said Davia Temin, chief executive of Temin and Company Inc., a reputation and crisis-management consultancy. “You have to demonstrate, from the time you start hearing of a report…that you are taking the moral high ground.” […read more]
NBC Fires Matt Lauer for “Inappropriate Behavior”
Richard Quest, Quest Means Business, CNN Money, November 29, 2017
U.S. TV anchor, Matt Lauer, was fired by NBC news after a complaint about inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.
Forget the drawn-out Harvey Weinstein or Kevin Spacey. With Matt Lauer, it all happened very quickly. The complaint was filed against Lauer on Monday. The investigation took place on Tuesday. And he was fired last night. The speed shows how seriously companies are now taking sexual harassment claims.
“It’s about time. Finally…through some conglomeration of social media, more women around, finally it is being taken seriously, and not a wink, wink, nod, nod,” said Davia Temin.
“I think that you can probably assume from the quickness with which Matt Lauer was fired that there was some real proof there. We don’t know what they saw. They’re not sharing everything. It’s not total transparency. Nor should it be. But there’s probably an awful lot of proof there. So, what I would say to you is, it’s not time yet. It’s not time for the pushback when we’re still just starting to hear what the real problem is.”
“All I can say is, it’s about time that they start looking the right way now. Let’s not castigate them for that yet.” […read more]
Halperin Scandal Adds to List of Harassment Concerns
Richard Quest, Quest Means Business, CNN Money, October 26, 2017
Five women have come forward with harassment claims against the journalist, Mark Halperin, relating to his time at ABC news. Halperin says he’s now stepping back from his role at MSNBC and NBC news. And while he denies some of the allegations, he does say he’s deeply sorry.
What is a company supposed to do when there are people like President H. W. Bush, who believed it was OK to pat a woman’s posterior. You’ve got Halperin, who asked people out on dates and then tried to kiss them, allegedly. Where are we going with this?
“Well, I think from time immemorial, we’re going to something that has been almost always true. And we’ re reaching a tipping point right now where it’s no longer acceptable. People are starting to talk about it more. Women are telling their stories more. And it starts with one person’ s personal narrative.”
But the company itself…what is the company supposed to do?
“First of all, they’ve already got the stuff on the books. They’ve got their regulations on the books. They haven’t ever enforced them in the way that most women would like to see it. So, what can companies, if the companies are getting serious about this, because of social media, because of 24-hour news shows, what now they need to do are carrots, sticks, and nudges. This is to change behavior. Carrots, sticks, nudges.” […read more]
To watch the interview, CLICK HERE.
Johnson Makes Rare Speech as Fidelity Deals With Harassment
Charles Stein, Laura Colby and Miles Weiss, Bloomberg, October 24, 2017
Fidelity Investments’ Abigail Johnson took center stage on Tuesday and counseled money managers gathering in Washington about charting their future in the digital world. But the chief executive, a featured speaker at one of the industry’s biggest conferences, is also struggling with a stubborn legacy of the past: the treatment of women in the world of finance.
Over the last two months, Fidelity, one of the largest investment companies, has dismissed two portfolio managers — one over allegations of inappropriate sexual comments and another over claims of sexually harassing a female junior employee.
Fidelity and other money managers may face a flood of complaints “now that the lid is off,” said Davia Temin, president and CEO of Temin & Co., a New York based crisis-management company.
Going forward, Johnson has to continue to “set the tone” that the organization will take every case that comes to light seriously and emphasize there’s also a business case for doing so, said Temin. While Fidelity is a closely held company without public shareholders, its customer base cares about these issues, she said. Some public pension funds already demand that women be included on teams that manage their money. […read more]
Faber, Weinstein Put Boards on Notice: You’re the Adults Now
Jeff Green and Jordyn Holman, Bloomberg, October 17, 2017
Corporate directors should now be on notice: bad behavior isn’t so easily swept under the rug. As a parade of executives has been outed as sexist, racist or both, boards have been called on to set — and enforce — standards of decent behavior.
On Tuesday, veteran investor and ubiquitous pundit Marc Faber agreed to leave the boards of three companies after he published racist commentary in his subscription newsletter. The week before, five Weinstein Co. directors quit in the wake of revelations about Harvey Weinstein and his history of alleged sexual assault and harassment made public by the New York Times and the New Yorker.
At this point, “CEOs and boards have to be the adults in the room,” said Davia Temin, head of the New York-based crisis-management firm Temin & Co. “Boards’ voices are getting strengthened, to some degree, because of the need of a counterpoint.” […read more]
How to Handle a PR Crisis a Lot Better Than Equifax
Leigh Anderson, Lifehacker, September 21, 2017
The Equifax data breach, in which 143 million accounts were compromised and which might have years-long consequences for consumers, was historic in its scope and potential for damage. But it’s also notable for how extraordinarily badly the company, at least from a public-relations standpoint, handled the fallout.
“It was a model of the worst case imaginable,” says Davia Temin, president and CEO of Temin and Company, a crisis and reputation-management firm. If you’re running a business, crises are inevitable.
It’s how you handle them that will determine whether you’ll move on relatively unscathed—or whether you’ll lose customers or even be forced out of business entirely. In this article, the author spoke to a couple of experts in the field about how they would have handled the Equifax breach better. […read more]
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