£500k university chief put £1 bag of crisps on expenses
Francois Ortalo-Magne, the dean of London Business School, also claimed £1.90 for a bag of chocolate almonds and £1.25 for antibacterial gel.
The 51-year- old Frenchman’s receipts were released under a Freedom of Information request – and the details may not be appreciated by students having to pay tuition fees of up to £84,000 at one of the world’s top business schools.
Mr Ortalo-Magne’s salary package is more than three times the Prime Minister’s and represents an inflation-busting 11 per cent increase on what his predecessor was paid. He was recruited from a busi- ness school in America in August 2017 and ran up a hefty bill travelling the world last year on London Business School duty.
His total expense claims for last year were said to be £8,637. But the figure does not include air fares which are paid through the school’s travel agency. Mr Ortalo-Magne travels included trips to Paris, Dubai, Hong Kong, San Francisco and New York.
And his wife Sondra has also benefited from the school’s generosity, sometimes accompanying him. Her flights alone cost nearly £20,000, and included a trip to Dubai where the couple spent two nights in a suite at the luxury Jumeirah Al Naseem beachfront hotel, the Sunday Times reported.
The London Business School confirmed that Mrs Ortalo-Magne ‘accompanied the dean on some of his working trips’ but said she had done so ‘ in her
‘School volunteer’
capacity as a volunteer for the school’. Other claims include gin and tonics at £14.75 each and he also reclaimed £4.75 for ‘ repair juice’ containing kale, apple, lime and pear.
Back home he spent £332 on a party for seven colleagues at The Ivy in St John’s Wood, north London, described as ‘a thankyou for all their hard work’.
He is not the only London Business School employee on a six-figure salary.
There are 122 paid £ 100,000 and 14 receive £300,000 or more, according to the organisation’s annual financial statement.
The London Business School said his responsibilities are ‘ wide-ranging and involve frequent overseas travel’. His expenses were also ‘processed in line with HM Revenue & Customs regulations’ and ‘in accordance with the school’s internal policies’, it added.