Red Bull excises the corporate cancer:
Red Bull has fired two top executives in the US who had lobbied for more diversity in the company and were blamed for the leak of a letter that criticized its ‘public silence’ on Black Lives Matter.
North America chief executive Stefan Kozak and North America president and chief marketing officer Amy Taylor were let go, the energy drink company said Tuesday.
While Red Bull employees in the US have been pressing for the company to be more vocal about racism, Red Bull’s billionaire CEO Dietrich Mateschitz is a Donald Trump admirer who has spoken out against ‘political correctness’.
The 76-year-old tycoon also owns a media firm which has been criticized for giving a platform to far-right activists in his native Austria.
Sources told Business Insider that Red Bull’s top executives in Austria are thought to have fired Kozak and Taylor in ‘retaliation’ for the leak, although no official reason was given for their departure.
The letter signed by more than 300 employees had criticized the company for ‘saying nothing’ amid the global anti-racism protests and ‘abandoning the communities we claim to support and foster in their time of greatest need’.
Both Kozak and Taylor have pushed for more diversity and inclusion but Taylor was ‘met with opposition’ when she called for the company to take a more public stand on racism, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Any employee who pushes for more diversity, inclusion, or any other social justice value should be axed on the spot. Give them HR and sooner or later, they will take the executive suite.