For a business group used to sitting at the political top table, and one that is desperately trying to salvage its reputation, this could hardly have been a more untimely and undignified public row.
On national radio on Wednesday morning, Tony Danker, the former director general of the Confederation of British Industry, claimed he had been sacked unfairly by the lobbying group.
In an interview he told the BBC he had been made a “fall guy” for an organisation that has been rocked by allegations of a toxic culture.
Later, on the same programme, the CBI president, Brian McBride, stood resolutely by the decision to fire him, and said Danker’s description of events was “selective”.
It was another indication of the turmoil consuming the organisation, some of whose 190,000 members are already considering whether to quit.
Danker and McBride found few points of agreement in their separate interviews on the Radio 4 Today programme.
Yet there was one area where they appeared to share the same view: it would not be appropriate for Danker to lead the CBI out of its present mess.
“I think it’s hard to believe that I should now be the guy to go back and fix the problem,” Danker told the BBC. He added that he wanted his “reputation restored”.
Those problems which Danker refers to at the CBI are stark and have engulfed it in crisis since the Guardian first reported them last month.
They relate to the handling of a range of allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use, made by more than 12 women.
An alleged rape and attempted sexual assault on a boat party in 2019 are among the claims. These allegations are now being investigated by the law firm Fox Williams, and the City of London police. None of them relate to Danker.
Central to Danker’s defence in his interview with the BBC, which was pre-recorded on Tuesday, was that the most serious allegations reported on by the Guardian were “before my time”.
He said: “I want to apologise to any one at the CBI that I upset or that I made uncomfortable. It was not misconduct, it was not all the terrible things that have since emerged. But I made them very uncomfortable and that is on me and I apologise for that. But I have had a week of coverage saying Tony Danker sacked in rape scandal. And these stories have been about rape, and sexual assault, and cocaine and bullying. None of that was anything to do with me and that was all before my time.”
While he may not have intended it, some listeners could have been left with the impression that nothing serious might have happened under his watch.
That impression would be inaccurate. And some of the sources who came forward to the Guardian were shouting at their radios too.
While the allegations relating to the 2019 summer boat party predate Danker’s employment as director general – he joined in November 2020 – others are far more recent.
Three male employees of the CBI have been suspended in recent weeks while it investigates.
This action was taken around the time the Guardian approached the CBI with allegations about them.
Some of what multiple sources claimed to have experienced – from being sent unsolicited intimate images from a senior manager, to being pressured into drinking, followed and propositioned by a different manager – date from when Danker was in charge. The alleged drug use, consumption of cocaine, is also not isolated to the 2019 summer event.
It is unclear what Danker may have known, and when.
As the boss, there is still a degree of accountability to be expected in terms of setting tone and culture from the top downward.
According to the BBC interview, some of the allegations made about Danker’s own conduct were serious enough for the CBI to dismiss him last week, even if it is clearly not correct to conflate his behaviour with entirely separate allegations of rape and sexual assault.
Essentially, yesterday Danker admitted to, and apologised for, having an over-familiar management style, that included inviting junior staff out for breakfasts and lunches, among other things.
He suggested that these invitations were related to mentoring activities. But that is not how some of the sources who spoke to the Guardian thought of them.
It was considered to be sexual harassment by some of the people on the receiving end of his behaviour, sources have claimed.
It wasn’t regarded as just upsetting by individuals that Danker looked at Instagram stories.
Sources claim the impact was far greater than individuals being made to feel “uncomfortable”.
Rather, individuals complained of feeling harassed, bombarded and singled out.
The allegations the Guardian put to him last month included that he sent one individual a barrage of unwanted messages, some featuring sexually suggestive language, for more than a year.
Danker has denied using sexually suggestive language. The CBI continues to insist that Danker was dismissed on strong legal grounds.
The Guardian approached Danker for comment.
