A top Lloyd’s of London insurance brokerage, Guy Carpenter & Co., fired a senior vice president for sending a sexually explicit email about a female colleague, one of the first dismissals to come to light since the industry began cracking down on such behavior early this year.
The firm also disciplined two other people over the electronic message, which the male executive sent to multiple team members in June offering them birthday donuts, before adding that a named female colleague “enjoys a glazed ring,” according to people with knowledge of the decision. Bloomberg reported at the time that the executive, and another man who forwarded the email to people outside the company, had been suspended pending an investigation.
Lloyd’s of London, the 331-year-old exchange where insurance underwriters and brokerages ply their trade, is clamping down on bad behavior after a Bloomberg Businessweek article in March described a deep-seated culture of endemic sexual misconduct in the market, ranging from inappropriate comments to assault. Following publication of that article, Lloyd’s set up an independent whistleblower hotline and laid out potential lifetime bans for inappropriate behavior.
“We take all incidents of harassment very seriously and will not tolerate any behavior that breaches our code of conduct,” Guy Carpenter said in an emailed statement. “When a serious breach of this policy occurred last month we suspended the individuals involved. Following a subsequent investigation, one colleague was terminated for gross misconduct and two others received serious internal sanctions. We have also initiated a series of projects designed to further build and strengthen our culture of diversity and inclusion.”