Blackface, booze, and blurred lines at the $2 billion tech firm Rokt
by the workplace-experience company Great Place to Work. Search for Rokt on social media, and you'll find employees posting pictures from staff retreats in Hawaii, Thailand, and Whistler, in British Columbia.by investors, Rokt has raised $487 million in venture funding from firms including Tiger Global, Square Peg Capital, and TDM Growth Partners. Lachlan Murdoch, the chief executive of Fox Corporation and the son of Rupert Murdoch, is a longtime shareholder.
Ahead of a company retreat, Shah's lawsuit said, Viles told female employees to get their"beach bodies" ready. Another former employee who sued Rokt late last year, Georgie Milne, claimed Buchanan made a similar remark to her. A third woman told Insider she once heard Buchanan say that Rokt took employees to beachy destinations so company leaders could see women in bikinis. Buchanan denied ever making such a remark.Rokt's New York office.
When it came to workplace concerns, human-resources employees seemed powerless to dispute the Buchanans' directives. According to Milne's lawsuit, Buchanan made frequent comments about her body, including saying he would like to see her in a bikini. He punctuated critiques of her work with remarks like,"You're lucky you're attractive, Georgie." In November 2021, the lawsuit claimed, he suggested that she sleep with his chief of staff. Buchanan denied saying any of that.
In September, Milne claims, Elizabeth Buchanan fired her at an in-person meeting, citing"Uber mistakes." "We think it's important that we stand up and fight it," he told Insider when asked about that message. While Viles' involvement with the company had decreased over the years, he was present at its"global kickoff" event in Phuket, Thailand, in January 2020. Several former employees who interacted with him there said Viles displayed bizarre behavior on the trip.
"The drug dealer was a little weird," the third attendee said."It was very apparent what was going on." Rokt hired Bertram despite having received warnings from Datadog, his previous employer, two people familiar with the situation told Insider. Buchanan said this wasn't true and that the company had checked his references. Two former Datadog employees said Bertram was known to drink excessively.
"I don't think it's appropriate to go into people's personnel files, all the positives and negatives we hear about," he said. Rokt brought in an outside law firm to conduct an investigation, which involved interviews and a review of surveillance footage. That investigation ultimately cleared Bertram, Buchanan said.
On March 3, Bill Barton, the company's chief product and engineering officer, told staff in an email that Bertram would be leaving the company on March 31."This has nothing to do with you or Georgie's claim," Buchanan said in an email to Insider.Bruce Buchanan was described by several former employees as intelligent and very hands-on, but also as a leader who tended to micromanage.
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