Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot was questioned about how much he knew of the toxic workplace culture that has resulted in the resignations of at least four executives so far.
It hasn’t been a good month for Ubisoft–at least internally. The company was rocked by allegations of sexual harassment and an overly misogynistic workplace culture late last month, and since then the scandal has claimed at least four high-ranking Ubisoft executives.
Ubisoft is a publicly-traded company, which means CEO Yves Guillemot must answer to his shareholders when a scandal like this breaks. And he did so last night during Ubisoft’s first-quarter earnings call.
Financial analyst Ken Rumph asked Guillemot point-blank how much he knew about the toxic workplace culture that had been fostered at Ubisoft. He laid out three possible options: either Guillemot didn’t know anything at all, he knew some but not enough, or he knew all along and was complicit in shielding Ubisoft executives from discipline and punishment.
“Each time we have been made aware of this conduct we have made, actually, tough decisions and we made sure those decisions had a clear and positive impact,” Guillemot began in a very carefully worded answer. “So that’s very important.
“It has now become clear that certain individuals betrayed the trust I placed in them and did not live up to Ubisoft’s shared values. I have never compromised on my core values and ethics and never will. I will continue to run and transform Ubisoft to face today’s and tomorrow’s challenges.”
Since the allegations arose last month, public outcry rose to the point that Guillemot was forced to take drastic action. An open letter detailed how Ubisoft would begin to reform itself, with investigations performed by external consulting firms to identify problematic employees and practices. So far, that investigation has resulted in the firing of at least one PR director and the resignations of four high-ranking executives, including Chief Creative Officer Serge Hascoët, Ubisoft Canada Director Yannis Mallat, Global Head of HR Cécile Cornet, and Vice President Editorial Maxime Béland.
Guillemot has thus far avoided any allegations of personal involvement, but for Ubisoft to become this bad under his tenure does not inspire confidence in his leadership.
Source: Ubisoft, Eurogamer
