Woman ‘lost £200k job as she didn’t talk about football’
A £200,000-A-YEAR sales director was sacked because she failed to discuss football over boozy dinners like ‘one of the lads’, a tribunal heard.
Adrienne Liebenberg lost her job at international packing conglomerate DS Smith after being told her ‘leadership style was not working’.
But the 45-year-old – who previously worked at oil and gas giant BP Castrol – says it was because of her gender.
In a statement to the Central London Employment Tribunal, Mrs Liebenberg said she was marginalised because she did not want to join in with the male banter and work style.
She claimed that key business decisions were often taken over ‘boozy dinners’ with a ‘gang’ of senior male employees – where the norm was ‘bonding, drink and football’.
As she had felt ‘alienated by the focus
‘Deep sense of despair’
on drinking and talking about football’, Mrs Liebenberg said she found it difficult to join in with these events.
She told the tribunal: ‘I did not believe that I was accepted as “one of the lads” and I did not feel I was capable of playing such a role.’
Hired as director of global sales, marketing and innovation in March 2017, she was given a ‘special joining award’ of £100,000 to spend on shares on top of her six-figure salary.
But tensions quickly grew between Mrs Liebenberg and line manager Stefano Rossi, the firm’s packaging chief executive. She was sacked in December 2018.
Mrs Liebenberg claimed that Mr Rossi was a huge football fan and he would often interrupt meetings to discuss football or watch highlights.
She said that she could not ‘remember a single day’ where he did not follow the football scores, watch videos on his phone or interrupt ‘to discuss Inter Milan or a particular player’.
Mrs Liebenberg, who has since cofounded a digital time capsule company called NotForgotten, noted she was often the only woman in the room at ‘maledominated’ DS Smith.
Of the 35 leadership roles in sales and operational positions, only eight were reportedly filled by women.
Zimbabwe-born Mrs Liebenberg, who lives in south-west London, said that she felt she had been treated differently for being a woman.
She claimed it ‘destroyed’ her belief that working hard pays off and said it filled her with a ‘deep sense of despair that women and men are not equals’.
Mr Rossi and some of his senior colleagues, including the company’s chief executive Miles Roberts, are adamant she was sacked because of poor performance, rather than sexism.
In a statement to the tribunal, Mr Rossi described Mrs Liebenberg as having a ‘dictatorial approach’ and a ‘lack of respect for senior colleagues’.
The company, Mr Rossi, Mr Roberts and the HR director Tim Ellis all deny sex discrimination.
The hearing continues.