Daily Mail

Two more business chiefs quit over bullying claims

- By James Burton City Correspond­ent

THE row over bullying and racism at one of the country’s premier business groups intensifie­d last night after two more of its leaders quit.

Barbara Judge, who temporaril­y stepped down as chairman of the Institute of Directors this week, formally resigned yesterday, criticisin­g the ‘gross and conspirato­rial mishandlin­g’ of allegation­s against her.

She was followed by her allies Sir Kenneth Olisa, the group’s deputy chairman, and Arnold Wagner, a nonexecuti­ve director.

Lady Judge, 71, is understood to have been secretly taped making racist and sexist comments about staff by IoD director general Stephen Martin.

She allegedly told employees: ‘ The problem is, we have one black and we have one pregnant woman and that is the worst combinatio­n apart from two blacks and one pregnant woman.’

She was also alleged to have told one female employee not to ‘dress like a tart’, said a colleague having a baby was committing ‘career suicide’ and harassed and bullied her staff.

In her resignatio­n letter, she said: ‘I continue to strongly refute the allegation­s made against me, and remain deeply disturbed by the gross and conspirato­rial mishandlin­g of the process which has led to the damaging circumstan­ces in which I and the institute are now placed.’

The allegation­s first surfaced as part of a complaint by 14 IoD staff claiming she harassed and bullied them.

She has a string of other senior roles in the City, but last night at least one – the charity Dementia UK, at which is a board member – was understood to be reviewing her position.

Lady Judge said she should not have spoken the way she did in the leaked recording but blamed her departure on ‘a malignant number of individual­s resistant to change’.

Last night Mr Martin hit back at suggestion­s that she had been forced out for trying to modernise the IoD, saying: ‘This is a victory for ordinary staff members… [and] good governance.’

 ??  ?? Sir Kenneth Olisa
Sir Kenneth Olisa
 ??  ?? Arnold Wagner
Arnold Wagner
 ??  ?? Lady Barbara Judge
Lady Barbara Judge

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