(Trinidad Guardian) The board of Massy Holdings Ltd has sent its executive vice president of Business Integrity, Angelique Parisot-Potter, on administrative leave until January 12, Massy sources told Guardian Media last night.
The reason she is being sent on leave is because of her conduct at the group’s 100th annual general meeting, which was held at the Hilton Trinidad on Monday, the sources said.
Parisot-Potter, who is also group general counsel at Massy and a shareholder of the company, told the meeting that she felt obliged to speak up about significant governance and fiduciary concerns, as detailed in a 13-page document, including audio evidence, that had previously been shared with the Massy CEO and president, Gervase Warner.
In a written statement that she read out at the annual general meeting (AGM), Parisot-Potter said, “Among other matters, one alarming issue is the so-called executive leadership programme, Delphi, which has been present in our organisation for over a decade.
“This programme involves frequent travel to Fort Myers, Florida, and weekly commitments for over a year at a cost per participant of tens of thousands of US dollars for which there were over 11 participants last year, alone.
“Their bizarre rituals include that they can train Massy employees to communicate with the dead and that attendees can self heal with ‘white light energy’.”
She said Massy’s engagement with Delphi was “a matter of grave concern to shareholders because the couple leading this programme appear to exert disproportionate influence over our executive team.”
She also told the Massy AGM that in the middle of a foreign exchange crisis, “Massy cannot be spending scarce resources on highly dubious activities, and contracts awarded cannot be pushed through without prudent due process. This is not just a governance issue; it’s a blatant disregard for shareholder interests.”
On Monday afternoon, a few hours after the annual meeting, Warner was asked by a Guardian Media journalist whether Parisot-Potter’s job was in jeopardy.
“Not because of what she said at the AGM,” he said in the interview, which was held following a private luncheon hosted by Massy at the Hilton.
Asked whether the fact that she wrote the 13-page letter of complaint to him means that Parisot-Potter is not aligned with the rest of the Massy executive management, Warner said, “That’s an interpretation that I cannot expand upon because that would be for her to speak to.”
In the interview with Guardian Media on Monday, the Massy CEO did not deny the claims made by Parisot-Potter three hours earlier at the AGM. Instead, he said there was a direct link between Massy’s success and the training received by the group’s executive management and board directors from Delphi Sphere Consultants.
But on Tuesday night, the board of Massy issued a press statement in which it said it was appalled at Parisot-Potter’s conduct at the AGM. In the statement, the Massy board described her comments as “patently untrue and scandalous.”
The board said it takes all allegations seriously and had initiated an independent process to look into each of Parisot-Potter’s allegations.
“The board, however, is concerned that Ms Parisot-Potter used the occasion of the company’s 100th AGM to follow up on her submission with public disclosure of a matter confidential to the company. The board has initiated a disciplinary process to review Ms Parisot-Potter’s conduct at the AGM against her duties as the general counsel to the company and will follow due process to determine how this should be handled responsibly yet decisively,” according to the board’s Tuesday press statement.
Yesterday’s emailed letter to Parisot-Potter, Massy sources said, indicated that the board of the group had decided to initiate the disciplinary process to consider her conduct at the AGM.