The boss of National Grid was yesterday publicly accused of ruining the fledgling career of a female employee because of a failure to satisfy his “sexual demands”.
The allegation was made by an audience member at Marks & Spencer’s annual shareholders meeting, of which the Grid’s chief executive, Steven Holliday, has been a non-executive director since July 2004.
He is also chairman of M&S’ renumeration committee and was sitting on a panel waiting for a question-and-answer session with 2,000 shareholders to begin when the outburst took place.
According to the Daily Mail, a woman then stood up and claimed that the 55 year old, who is married with at least two daughters, was in breach of “his own ethics policy” in relation to her daughter.
“He talks about supporting the young, yet he pursued her, used his power to control her job and destroyed her career when she could no longer meet his sexual demands,” she said.
As gasps were heard throughout the auditorium, security staff attempted to switch off the woman’s microphone, but she continued to talk until she was ushered out of the Royal Festival Hall in London by her husband.
She told the newspaper: “I can’t talk about it. I have to go now,” before adding that her daughter had been a high flier at National Grid before her alleged ordeal, but had not been in a relationship with Holliday.
National Grid confirmed that it was made aware of the allegations a couple of years ago, but that the matter had been dropped following a probe.
It said in a statement: “We have known about the allegation since 2010. It has been investigated and found to be without foundation. Her departure from the company was by mutual consent. Due to legal constraint, we cannot comment further.”
