Update: Michigan will divest $600 million of its pension fund from Fisher Investments after CEO Ken Fisher allegedly made sexist remarks.
Fisher Investments CEO Ken Fisher has been banned from future Tiburon CEO Summits and the company he founded will start a diversity task force after reports surfaced of offensive remarks he made at the popular industry event.
Charles (Chip) Roame, Managing Partner of Tiburon Strategic Advisors and the Summit’s host, released a statement on Thursday that totaled nearly 1,300 words and commended Lake Avenue Financial CEO Alex Chalekian, “for having the strength to go public Tuesday night with his views of offensive behavior.”
Chalekian broke the Summit’s off-the-record protocol to tweet a video in which he described Fisher’s “fireside chat” interview with Roame as a “true debacle.”
“It was horrible. Things that were said by Ken Fisher were just absolutely horrifying,” Chalekian alleged. “He made comments about genitalia, he talked about picking up on a girl and ‘don’t show them what’s in your pants.’”
“We all choose our ways to deal with bad behavior,” Roame said in his statement, but did not refer to Fisher by name. “The recent situation that arose at Tiburon has been dealt with firmly. I believe that I clearly repudiated the comments and apologized to all the attendees. I further barred the speaker from ever attending again.”
Additionally, Bloomberg reported Friday that “Fisher Investments plans to start a diversity and inclusion task force in the wake of Ken Fisher’s vulgar comments at a conference this week, the firm’s chief executive said in a letter to employees.”
“Let me be clear: Ken’s comments were wrong,” CEO Damian Ornani said in the letter. “He has admitted that and apologized for them.”
The Tiburon Summit, a gathering of top investment and business leaders, typically asks attendees to refrain from commenting outside the event to ensure speakers can freely share their thoughts about strategy and other potentially sensitive business topics.
Fisher’s response
In a statement made after the remarks, Fisher “truly and sincerely apologized” to Chalekian and any others who were offended, but seemed surprised by the outcry, telling Bloomberg he’s spoken like that in the past.
“I have given a lot of talks, a lot of times, in a lot of places and said stuff like this and never gotten that type of response,” Fisher, 68, told the news service, adding he thought his comments were taken out of context. “Mostly the audience understands what I am saying.”
A number of female Summit attendees confirmed Chalekian’s version of events and condemned the comments as representative of a larger sexism issue with which the financial services industry must deal.
In his video tweet, Chalekian claimed many of the women in attendance expressed that comments like Fisher’s are a reason they don’t like to attend industry conferences and added that “it makes them feel very uncomfortable and this, obviously, doesn’t help the situation.”
Yet Roame said he received an email from Laura Varas, CEO of data and research firm Hearts & Wallets, expressing support for Tiburon and the Summit.
“I would like to say, on the record, that Tiburon, through the Tiburon CEO Summits, has been one of the few shining beacons of support for me as a female CEO,” Varas allegedly wrote in Roame’s defense. “The willingness of the other CEOs, mostly male, to welcome, encourage and advise me has been a great support.”
With more than 20 years serving financial markets, John Sullivan is the former editor-in-chief of Investment Advisor magazine and retirement editor of ThinkAdvisor.com. Sullivan is also the former editor of Boomer Market Advisor and Bank Advisor magazines, and has a background in the insurance and investment industries in addition to his journalism roots.
