Top-performing Ceo in the World by Harvard Business Review
From employee scandals to legal controversies, some companies have faced serious bug after their CEOs put their unabridged future in jeopardy with their questionable actions. Even powerhouse companies like Nike, Victoria'southward Secret, Groupon, Etsy and Uber weren't allowed from damaged reputations caused by controversial CEOs.
Intense media backfire, fallouts with shareholders, lies, arrests and plenty of questionable actions — these CEOs nearly price their companies everything. Are yous set to run across the controversial entrepreneurs who were fired from their ain businesses? Let'south have a wait!
John Schnatter – Papa Johns
When we talk about a CEO striking with the virtually media backlash, the one and only John Schnatter of Papa John's Pizza comes to mind. Schnatter came under fire because of his comments related to the NFL and national anthem protests. He effectively said poor NFL leadership affected Papa John's shareholders.
What actually didn't assist his case was that he dropped a racial slur in the procedure. The intense social media backlash resulted in a 30% drop in Papa John's share price. Equally of 2019, Schnatter has sold a 3rd of his stock in the company, claiming it's doomed, and he doesn't desire to see the crash.
Harvey Weinstein – The Weinstein Company
Ane of the most controversial Hollywood personas in 2019, Harvey Weinstein is a former movie producer who came under fire when advocates of the #metoo campaign accused him of sexually assaulting more than eighty women during his time as an influential Hollywood figure. Due to the intense and immediate backfire by the Hollywood movie industry and on social media, his own company fired him.
Weinstein no longer works in the movie industry due to his reputation. He is yet subject to plenty of lawsuits and other significant court cases surrounding the sexual assault allegations. One criminal trial recently started in Jan 2020.
Rob Kalin – Etsy
Rob Kalin is one of those founders that quit his own company not just one time, but twice — first in 2008 and once more three years later in 2011. Although Etsy's global reputation remains solid, rumor has it that Kalin wasn't upwardly to the challenge of scaling the visitor'due south growth. Co-ordinate to critics, Etsy wasn't managed professionally under Kalin's leadership.
Rather than damaging the company'southward reputation farther, he decided to leave and hand things over to Republic of chad Dickerson, who was later fired. The share price of the company plummeted, and 17% of Etsy's workforce was laid off in 2017.
Travis Kalanick – Uber
Travis Kalanick is perchance one of the virtually notable names in the corporate world. Being the founder of Uber was never an easy task, and Kalanick came under fire after the company faced a major public relations crisis in 2017. Uber was accused of toxic in-firm environments, sexual harassment and an unethical civilisation.
The controversial CEO reportedly ignored repeated sexual harassment claims in the visitor and behaved inappropriately in professional situations, prompting growing business organisation for Uber'southward in-house and global reputation. Later on many controversies, he resigned in 2017 forth with several other top company managers.
Jonah Peretti – BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed's reputation tends to be questioned and criticized due to the variety of content on the platform. When Jonah Peretti, the company'due south CEO, had to let more than 200 employees become without alarm, the controversial actions quickly became public knowledge.
The company was criticized for not paying its community contributors, including an unpaid teenager who brought in more than 130 million website views in 2018 with her quizzes. Peretti also came under burn after suggesting that people bring puppies to the function on the mean solar day of the layoffs, an action that many deemed to be insensitive.
Roger Ailes – Pull a fast one on News
2017 was a huge yr for controversies in the world of big business and CEOs, and many of those controversies ended up changing companies forever. Fob News was no stranger to controversy and scandal, but the network giant took a huge reputation hit in 2017.
The company's CEO, Roger Ailes, and some top news anchors in the visitor were accused of multiple counts of sexual harassment. The anchors got their shows canceled, and Ailes was fired when more than a dozen women came forward to charge him. In May 2017, Ailes passed abroad from hemophilia.
Lee Jae-yong – Samsung
Samsung faced its biggest controversy in 2016, thank you to issues with exploding batteries that injure both people and the company's reputation. Just a yr later, the visitor came nether burn down for its questionable leadership. Samsung is family-run, with Lee Jae-yong once at the forefront.
Still, in 2017 Jae-yong was arrested based on accusations of embezzlement and corruption, which included bribing South Korea's ex-president. He was released from jail in 2018, but his futurity with Samsung is unclear. The company was also guilty of several labor offenses, and antitrust concerns arose after Jae-yong'southward bribery scandal.
Aubrey McClendon – Chesapeake Energy
Leadership comes in many shapes and forms, and some CEOs are known to be slightly more aggressive and reckless than others. In 2018, Chesapeake Energy's CEO, Aubrey McClendon, made the news when he was questioned about the legitimacy of borrowing money from some of his investment wells.
Information technology was revealed he had borrowed more than $1 billion for personal investments in wells that were initiated by Chesapeake. The reports completely tarnished the company's reputation, with many believing Chesapeake was no longer a natural gas company, but rather a domain for McClendon's personal ventures.
Andrew Mason – Groupon
Andrew Mason has been embroiled in quite a few controversies that directly injure Groupon'south reputation with its investors as well every bit with consumers. The CEO struggled to move on from the company'southward fun start-up life and came under fire plenty of times for his behavior, including one incident where he drank beer during 1 of the investor meetings.
Wall Street also started to lose faith in the company, challenge that Groupon had lost managerial focus and confidence. In 2012, CNBC named Mason the "Worst CEO of the Year," challenge his antics put a bad epitome on the company's corporate reputation.
Martin Shkreli – Turing Pharmaceuticals
One of the biggest pharma scandals was perpetrated by CEO Martin Shkreli, often dubbed 1 of the nigh hated men in America. Shkreli received global criticism in 2015 afterwards raising the toll of a common drug used to care for parasitic diseases.
It may exist quite normal for drug companies to raise their pricing, but because of Shkreli'south decisions, this particular antiparasitic was being sold for $750 per pill instead of $thirteen.50 per pill. He was besides charged with securities fraud, resulting in a seven-year prison judgement and a fine of more than $7 million. He is currently in prison.
Bongani Nqwababa and Stephen Cornell – Sasol
Some companies take joint CEOs in order to complement each other's business concern and leadership skills. Of form, that approach doesn't ever work out. Bongani Nqwababa and Stephen Cornell both agreed to resign after initiating a project that cost the company more than than $12 billion and dramatically lowered Sasol's share price by 44%.
An investigation into the projection uncovered misconduct and incompetence at elevation management levels equally well as financial communications with the co-CEOs. Afterward the two executives resigned, the company'south share cost went back up based on the hope of a better company culture and management.
Sanjay Kumar – Figurer Associates International
The infamous 2004 Computer Assembly International fraud scandal put the company's reputation at adventure. The multi-billion-dollar fraud involved the participation of many employees, from pinnacle-level management all the style downwardly, but the primary person responsible was the CEO, Sanjay Kumar.
The company was accused of intentionally miscalculating its revenues in the previous quarter, committing a serious regulatory crime and harming the company's human relationship with its shareholders. Information technology was proven that top direction removed contract fourth dimension stamps and did everything they could to falsely inflate sales and profits. Kumar was arrested in 2006 and released from prison in 2017.
John Fellows Akers – IBM
IBM'due south reputation among employees (too as non-employees) tends to exist below average. In the late '80s, the company's CEO, John Fellows Akers, made some significant changes to speed up the process of delivering their products to the marketplace.
He created iii democratic organizations within the company, merely the strategy wasn't successful. Instead, information technology resulted in huge business organisation losses as well as more than 40,000 employees losing their jobs. He was ultimately removed by the board, and the company is withal trying to rebuild IBM'southward reputation with both consumers and employees.
Adam Neumann – WeWork
WeWork was without a doubt one of the most successful coworking and co-living startups — for a while. Notwithstanding, in 2019, the company's downfall started when its CEO, Adam Neumann, began to lose the confidence of the company's investors due to his inability to run the public corporation efficiently.
In the midst of brutal losses, Neumann stepped down from his CEO position, but not before he received almost $200 million in consultancy fees and near $ane billion from selling WeWork stock to SoftBank. In 2019, Neumann was also sued by a former employee for sexual discrimination.
Kevin Plank – Under Armour
Under Armour has faced many challenges over the past decade, equally the company has struggled to keep up with other sportswear brands similar Nike and Adidas. Information technology lost $200 million due to restructuring and layoffs, and many employees came forward with negative allegations well-nigh its CEO, Kevin Plank.
The company was criticized for its overly relaxed civilisation, which included regular company-paid trips to strip clubs. Plank was likewise part of an affair scandal with an MSNBC anchor. The company's reputation took a hit with its shareholders, and Plank was forced to resign.
Marking Parker – Nike
2018 and 2019 were hard years for Nike's PR team, equally the company'due south CEO, Marking Parker, was accused not but of a controversial doping scandal, merely also sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the workplace. An investigation revealed emails of Parker communicating with motorcoach Alberto Salazar most using functioning enhancing drugs that wouldn't exist discovered past doping tests.
2 ex-employees sued the visitor, stating that the salaries of women were lower than salaries of men. Parker officially left Nike in 2019, along with several executives and the president of the Nike brand.
Jan Vocaliser – Victoria'southward Secret
Victoria's Hush-hush has reportedly struggled with sales and profits over the past couple of years. In 2018, the company's CEO, Jan Singer, resigned when a Vogue interview with Victoria Secret's chief marketing officer highlighted that the company's controversial strategy was to market its products but to certain types of women.
The company has also been criticized for not responding to the consumer demand to put comfort before lace equally well as failing to embrace inclusivity. Unable to satisfy these demands and restore the company's reputation, Jan Singer resigned.
John McAfee – McAfee
McAfee'due south former CEO, John McAfee, has led a life that could have been taken directly out of an intense crime pic. Afterwards relocating to Belize, McAfee was questioned by authorities equally a person of interest in the murder of an American expatriate.
The interrogations fabricated McAfee avoid Belize and relocate to Guatemala, where he proceeded to blog nigh his time on the run from the constabulary. He was then arrested and nearly faced deportation, but he faked two small-scale heart attacks to purchase time for his lawyer to file an appeal. We couldn't make upward this kind of crazy if we tried!
Elon Musk – Tesla
Although Tesla is becoming more and more popular, Elon Musk is no stranger to outrageous controversies. He might not compare to some of the other CEOs on our listing for bad management, only information technology has been reported that Musk is one of the toughest bosses out in that location.
In 2015, he reportedly scolded an employee for leaving for the nascence of his child instead of staying at work. Tesla workers have also come up forwards to merits they were fired for taking sick or maternity leave. Apparently, the law ways aught to Musk, and the company has faced several lawsuits, including some related to discrimination and harassment.
Bernardo Hees – Kraft Heinz
Kraft Heinz faced a large shakeup in 2019 afterwards its CEO stepped down in the wake of a huge value reject in the company's stock toll. Originally separate companies, Kraft and Heinz merged when they were caused by 3G Upper-case letter.
Bernardo Hees took control of the company and came nether fire for his strict management and bizarre rules, which included 1 that wouldn't allow employees to bring rival food brands into the office. This had a dramatic effect on the company's in-house reputation, especially after many layoffs and budget cuts related to operating and managing the visitor.
Marissa Mayer – Yahoo
Marissa Mayer has been named one of the worst CEOs in American history. Impressive, right? She took over Yahoo in 2012 in hopes of restoring the search engine's greatness so information technology could compete with giants similar Google. Her strategy involved acquiring 53 internet companies. However, apart from Tumblr, none of them fabricated whatsoever significant racket in the online world.
Additionally, the Tumblr acquisition ended with its value decreasing by a staggering $230 one thousand thousand. She also prevented employees from working from dwelling house in an endeavour to bring the team closer together over again. None of the strategies worked and only resulted in layoffs and her official dismissal.
Kenneth Lay – Enron
Kenneth Lay was a huge figure in Enron's early days, as information technology made its way to the top as an energy-trading behemothic. Unfortunately, bad business practices led to the visitor's downfall. After investigators uncovered bookkeeping fraud, the business' stock price plummeted from $90 to $ane, and its shareholders lost $11 billion.
The loss resulted in Enron filing for bankruptcy in what was ane of the largest corporate bankruptcies in America. Lay and another Enron executive, Jeffrey Skilling, were arrested for fraud and conspiracy. Lay passed away from a heart assault during the sentencing stage of his trial. Skilling spent years in prison and was released in 2019.
Bernie Ebbers – MCI WorldCom
In 2002, the success of MCI WorldCom's business ventures came to a crushing cease. Bernie Ebbers, the company's CEO, was involved in the largest accounting fraud in history, making a staggering $11 billion in misstatements. Ebbers was also accused of taking millions of dollars from the visitor for personal loans.
It was besides late to save the company at that point. The huge scandal plummeted MCI WorldCom'due south stock price, and the company'due south shareholders lost more than $100 billion. Ebbers was arrested and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He is ready to exist released in 2028.
Mark Hurd – Hewlett-Packard
Marking Hurd may not exist on the same level equally some of the CEOs on our list, but that doesn't mean he's not guilty of some wrongdoing. He was fired as CEO of Hewlett-Packard after he was caught submitting inaccurate expense reports. To make matters worse, he tried to hide his relationship with a female person contractor who was involved with the business.
Hurd was fired for inaccurate expense reporting and demonstrating poor leadership skills that didn't live up to CEO standards. The decision was unanimously fabricated by the board, who stated that his "conduct undermined the standards" ready for employees.
James McDermott – Keefe, Bruyette & Forest
Keefe, Bruyette & Woods is an investment depository financial institution that didn't go by without a scandal in the late '90s. The company's CEO, James McDermott, was involved in a relationship with an adult picture show extra, Marilyn Star (also frequently styled as Marylin Star). He revealed confidential visitor information about a futurity merger, and Star passed the data on to another lover.
The couple used McDermott'due south information to invest in the stock market and made more $80,000. McDermott was arrested and forced to pay a fine of $230,000, while Star only faced a few months in jail.
Martha Stewart – Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia
Ah, Martha Stewart — what practice y'all think about when you hear that proper name? Starting her catering visitor back in 1976, Stewart presently became a strength to exist reckoned with in the culinary world. She launched her ain visitor, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and that's when things started to go downhill.
She was found guilty of conspiracy and insider trading and served five months in a minimum security prison. Although her brand recovered from the bad press, Stewart is oftentimes associated with time in prison as much equally culinary success.
Abby Lee Miller – Abby Lee Dance Company
Abby Lee Miller is an infamous dance teacher and the possessor of Abby Lee Trip the light fantastic toe Visitor. Climbing to fame due to the Telly show Dance Moms, Miller showed the world her character as one of the toughest dance teachers effectually.
In 2015, her reputation took a hit when she was charged with bankruptcy fraud and hiding more than $700,000 in assets. She was convicted and sentenced to one yr in prison. As of 2019, Miller is back teaching, simply her reputation will never be the same over again.
John Browne – BP
The John Browne scandal is slightly dissimilar than the others on our listing. Browne, the CEO of BP, lied under oath when he was asked about his relationship with his young man. Specifically, he lied about how they starting time met, saying they were both jogging in London when, in fact, they met through a male escort agency.
This resulted in a permanent dismissal from the visitor, mostly to ensure harm command before perjury accusations could hurt the make. Browne too forfeited a multimillion-dollar severance package upon his exit.
David Edmondson – RadioShack
David Edmondson spent more than 10 years at RadioShack before revealing a shocking truth — he had lied on his CV. The CEO of the visitor claimed he had received a theology and psychology degree, but he actually only finished 2 semesters at a school where a psychology caste was never even offered.
In truth, he didn't concur any degrees whatsoever. He admitted to lying on his resume in 2006 and resigned shortly after that. The discovery came virtually afterward Edmondson was arrested for DUI, and a newspaper started digging up information about his past.
Harry Stonecipher – Boeing
Boeing is no stranger to controversies from inside and outside the company. In 2003, Harry Stonecipher came out of retirement and became the company's CEO, but he didn't seem to learn annihilation from the erstwhile CEOs' mistakes.
Affairs with employees are a huge no-no in the business world, and Stonecipher just didn't heed. An investigation into his emails with i of his executives confirmed the matter, forcing Stonecipher to resign after just eighteen months in the position. After news of the affair broke, his wife filed for divorce. At least it was for true love, as Stonecipher later married the employee.
Source: https://www.consumersearch.com/technology/companies-screwed-by-ceo?utm_content=params%3Ao%3D740007%26ad%3DdirN%26qo%3DserpIndex