The CBI chairman described as “selective” the first public comments by ousted chief executive Tony Danker, who claimed on Wednesday he had been named the “villain” in the vast scandal within the employers’ organisation.
Danker told the BBC his reputation was “totally destroyed” because his name appeared alongside a series of allegations, including rape, which did not implicate him.
Danker said the allegations against him were as follows: Viewing the private Instagram accounts of CCR staff; invite selected staff to a karaoke night; posting social messages on business messaging platforms, asking employees to share photos of their babies and dogs; and taking junior staff to breakfasts, lunches or one-on-one meetings.
Responding on the BBC Today program, CBI Chairman Brian McBride called Danker’s description “selective.” He said the reasons for the former chief executive’s dismissal were set out in a letter to Danker: “There’s more to this letter than what we just talked about.”
But McBride said the CBI would not release the report that led to Danker’s sacking, saying it was a “private legal matter”.
“The Board has lost confidence in its ability to lead the organization and represent the CBI in public. If an employee of a company in the UK feels they have been unfairly dismissed, they can go to an employment tribunal or take you to the High Court,” he said.
Danker maintained that he was fired for actions that only weeks earlier did not warrant disciplinary action, adding that he was considering legal action but did not want to press charges.
“It’s so clear, I’ve been chosen as the scapegoat,” he said. “Not only did they throw me under the bus, they flipped the bus over me.”
“I want to apologize to anyone at the CBI that I made uncomfortable – that’s on me. But it wasn’t misconduct, it wasn’t all the terrible things that emerged Since.”
A woman who claims she received unwanted attention from Danker while working at the CBI told the Financial Times she was “extremely disappointed” by his remarks.
“He claims to be a victim of CBI HR [Human Resources] processes that actually let down the women who were getting his unwanted attention, not him,” she said. “To sting his behavior [against] the atrocious behavior of others to protect themselves is brazen cowardice.
Another former CBI employee, who has criticized the organization’s culture as toxic and is in close contact with those affected, said Danker’s decision to go public was selfish.
“The women he ‘made uncomfortable’ went through a traumatic time reliving their experiences over and over again [during] for the past few weeks, and he’s showing them no respect by grabbing the public mic like that and putting his own best interests first,” she added.
Danker declined to comment.
The CBI is fighting to salvage its reputation after weeks of damaging headlines that led government ministers and senior opposition Labor politicians to end interactions with the lobby group.
In a statement released last week, he said Danker’s conduct “falls short of what was expected of the chief executive.”
Three other CBI staff members have been suspended pending the outcome of an investigation into allegations of misconduct by law firm Fox Williams, which include a rape at a staff party in 2019, before Danker take over the organization in November 2020.
McBride told the Financial Times last Friday that Danker was the subject of a formal complaint in January which was resolved, but within four days a second complaint had emerged. danking stepped back on March 6 and was fired less than a month later, following an investigation by Fox Williams.
McBride said the decision to sack Danker was made unanimously by the board, who felt it had a “very strong” legal basis.
He added that it was “a barefaced lie to try to imply that none of the sexual misconduct alleged in the report happened while he was in charge.”
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