Two more business chiefs quit over bullying claims
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.’