Bento Africa’s Board of Directors has waded into corporate bullying scandal rocking the company by advising the Chief Executive Officer, Ebunoluwa Okunbanjo to take some time off and be removed from any people-related decisions for the time being.
The board made this known in a press release posted on Bento Africa’s website on Wednesday.
The board’s decision follows days of raging social media backlash principally driven by ex-staff of the company who had experienced Ebun’s high-handedness and outright bullying.
The social media backlash itself follows a report by Tech Cabal highlighting years of staff abuse by the CEO and founder of the tech start-up, Ebunoluwa Okunbanjo.
The report has spun-off various threads on Twitter with hashtags or topics, including, #HorribleBosses, Ebun and Toxic Bosses.
Ebun reportedly verbally abused his employees, calling them ‘monkeys, motherf*ckers’ deadweights, p*ssies among many other unconscionable curse words.
He was also accused of sacking staff on whims. He would sometimes sack a staff and go after him when it dawned on him the staff’s absence was being felt. A particular staff who shared his experience with Tech Cabal was sacked twice and offered the job back twice. While he accepted the first time, he declined to return the second time.
Sacking in the company was basically done by just deactivating the staff’s emails and Slack accounts.
Ebun was also accused of threatening staff that he would not let them get employed anywhere else in the ecosystem if he sacked them.
In their press release, the board of the company stated that Ebun warned them about the impending article in Tech Cabal after the publication contacted him for his side of the story.
The board said it was dissatisfied with his ‘escalatory’ tweets on the issue and told him so. This might be responsible for him deleting the responses.
Part of the board’s statement: “As he is mandated to, Ebun informed the Board of Directors of Bento last Thursday that he had been asked to comment on an article about the workplace culture at Bento and that he expected that something of material impact will soon be published. As professional Investors and Operators, we were aghast at the defensive and escalatory first tweets of Ebun on the matter, which we quickly moved against. Our responsibility and charter is to the Company, not the founders we invest in.”
“We instructed that Ebun take some time off and removed him from all people-related decisions for now. Chidozie will now lead on this along with the country managers and functional heads,” the board said.
The board also indicated that it will ensure that the current team is protected and that they are free to share their thoughts. Also, any NDAs that may have been in place have been revoked, and the team has been directed by management to speak with any journalist who contacts them.
The board said it is aware of the wider impact the conversation has sparked and has also initiated an active inquiry into Bento’s present working culture. It says it is committed to ensuring Bento becomes the leading voice for the transformation of every workspace into psychologically safe spaces that allow all employees to thrive.
