Richard Shulze, the founder of Best Buy is leaving his role as company chairman, after an independent investigation found he had failed to report allegations of personal misconduct by former CEO Brian Dunn to the board’s audit committee.
Best Buy also said the investigation found that Dunn violated company policy by “engaging in an extremely close personal relationship with a female employee that negatively impacted the work environment,” reports Reuters. However, there appears to have been no misuse of company resources.
Dunn already made his exit on April 10, amidst the probe of his actions, which, at the time, were categorized as “personal misconduct.”
The new chairman will be Hatim Tyabji, chairman of mobile network software company Bytemobile and chairman of Best Buy’s audit committee, starting on June 21 at the company’s annual meeting.
Best Buy founder leaving chairman role after CEO probe [Reuters]
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He was “engaging in an extremely close personal relationship with a female employee that negatively impacted the work environment,”
TRANSLATED: He was screwing a female employee and probably promoted her over other more qualified people which really pissed them off.
WRONG….he didn’t have an affair outside of texting and taking her out to dinner a few times. And she wasn’t promoted but the board was afraid it opened the company up to claims of harassment if the relationship ever soured.
I’d say the relationship went well beyond texting and taking her out to dinner “a few times.” It was more like quite a few times — in addition other behaviors that made their “extremely close personal relationship” a big enough problem to make other workers uncomfortable.
According to the official report of “Alleged Misconduct” that was submitted May 12 to Best Buy’s Board of Directors:
- Both the CEO and the female employee acknowledged numerous social meetings outside the office, including lunches and drinks both during the work week and on the weekend.
- During one four-day and one five-day trip abroad during 2011, the CEO contacted the female employee by cell phone at least 224 times, including 33 phone calls, 149 text messages, and 42 picture or video messages.
- Photographs were discovered on the CEO’s personal cell phone that contained messages expressing affection, one of which included the female employee’s initials.
- Several employees witnessed the CEO visit with the female employee in his office and alone in conference rooms.
Yes, they deny having an affair, and there’s no proof. But I wasn’t expecting to see Dunn and his “affectionate” 29-year-old weekend “drinking-and-dining” companion in a video on the internet.
Dunn already made his exit on April 10, amidst the probe of his actions, which, at the time, were categorized as “personal misconduct.
==
Did he try to buy an unoptimized PC?
Does optimized mean it is full of porn?
He didn’t push enough Monster HDMI cables over the past 2 months.
Well, since he’s fucked all the customers…
COTD.
He should be happy – he is leaving for something that doesn’t have to do with the company crashing into the ground and exploding.
Hatim? Yes, I do already.
To be fair, he didn’t “fail to report” it. He just couldn’t reach anyone in the company who could process the claim or would call him back.
This!
Sounds like Dunn was pushing his own brand of “Monster Cable” to someone over there…
I still have to assume Dunn made this woman dress up like Princess Leia and he kept pulling her closer via the chain she was attached to.
If you think about it, that is the only logical visual image that comes from this scenario.
I was thinking of Dunn in bed with her, eating a turkey leg while screaming “Dig my SEXY BODY! Once you go FAT you never go back!.”
Are we sure he didn’t try to eat her? In the way a lion tries to eat a gazelle?
Oh, I bet the June 21 meeting will be fun. The chairman of the audit committee should have some interesting things to say about today’s reports of fraudulent order shenanigans.
That’s one gutsy woman if she had sex with a 400 lb. Jabba the Hut clone on top of her!
/yawn
Insert random anti-Best Buy snark here.
I think reasons for the resignations of Dunn and Shulze go a lot deeper than what’s been officially announced.
While I do not condone sexual harassment in any way, shape or form, the press releases issued by BBY make it sound as though Dunn and the mystery woman had a strictly consensual relationship.. My guess is this story (while true) was the tip of a much deeper iceberg including one or more of the following:
* Other women; a pattern of Dunn playing “grab ass” with other employees in addition to the one in the story.
* Misspending company funds on said relationships (example: Booking expensive hotel rooms or airfare under the guises of a business trip and taking their employee sex toys along).
* Any excuse to dump Dunn and Shulze in the wake of BBY’s financial decline. The “audit committee” likely had a lot less to do with preventing a hostile work enviornment than it did with the goal of finding any legally acceptable reason to clean house of upper management.
A strictly-consensual relationship between superior and subordinate is still considered sexual harassment and is 100% against Best Buy internal policy. When someone is in a position of authority, consent becomes more subjective, because of the risk of a quid-pro-quo. Not only that, but other people who may have known about the relationship are considered to be working in a hostile environment. This opened the company to huge liability.
Ah…failed to report the allegations. I was wondering how the heck Schulze was responsible for Dunn’s actions.
So an executive from the good old boy network of a big international corporation covered up for one of their fellow executives? Noooooooooooo
Jeez… Can’t a well-off guy get some fine young trim without the whole world knowing about it?! It must have been the jealous fat chick that ratted him out, it’s always those fat chicks… /sarcasm