Microsoft has lost its second high profile US director in as many weeks amid fresh revelations of inappropriate executive behaviour during its UK High Court battle over sexual harassment claims.
According to the Daily Telegraph, Linda Zecher, a board member and vice president of the software giant’s worldwide public sector business, shocked colleagues when she left the company on Thursday to become chief executive of publishing firm Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
No one at the firm had any idea of her plans to go, not least because she was named in an internal memo as one of two possible successors to Simon Witts, another board member who headed up Microsoft’s worldwide enterprise and partner group, which accounts for a third of its international revenues.
Witts had left the company abruptly after working there for 18 years, following a meeting with his boss, chief operating officer Kevin Turner.
Witts was named in documents lodged at the UK’s High Court as one of the key advocates of Simon Negus, former second in command at Microsoft UK, who was sacked amid claims of sexual misconduct and harassment and is now suing the firm for £10 million for 15 years’ loss of earnings, harassment and wrongful dismissal.
Allegations during the court case to date have centred on a culture of “outrageous behaviour” fuelled by “excessive drunkenness”. The latest details to emerge pointed to three senior female executives engaging in a “catfight” at one of the parties in which Negus is accused of indulging in “flirting and touching” his colleague Toni Knowlson.
According to witness statements, two other female executives chastised Knowlson on taking offence at her “bubbly” and “outgoing” demeanour, but Claude Brown, the dinner’s host, said the “aggressive exchange” spoiled the evening.
Knowlson, whom Negus had allegedly kissed at Microsoft’s Global Exchange conference in Atlanta, went home in a distressed state, while the rest of the party went elsewhere for more drinks.
She had previously claimed to be the subject of a smear campaign by other female executives, who suggested she had been promiscuous during other trips away. Negus denies all of the allegations.
