Massy is be­ing mocked on so­cial me­dia fol­low­ing claims by Angélique Parisot-Pot­ter–the com­pa­ny’s ex­ec­u­tive vice pres­i­dent of busi­ness in­tegri­ty and group gen­er­al coun­sel–that it en­gages in bizarre rit­u­als for ex­ec­u­tives. Since Guardian Me­dia broke the sto­ry on Tues­day, so­cial me­dia users have used the claims ex­ag­ger­at­ed­ly to cre­ate hu­mor­ous con­tent on the or­gan­i­sa­tion which have gone vi­ral.

In an “All Staff” memo is­sued by the pres­i­dent and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Ger­vase Warn­er yes­ter­day, he told staff that the claims cer­tain­ly cross in­to the realm of the ab­surd. On Mon­day, at the com­pa­ny’s an­nu­al gen­er­al meet­ing, Parisot-Pot­ter said Massy’s ex­ec­u­tive lead­er­ship con­sul­tant—the Mi­a­mi-based Del­phi Sphere Con­sult­ing—en­gages in bizarre rit­u­als for ex­ec­u­tives, their lead­er­ship pro­gramme is a drain of scare for­eign ex­change and the cou­ple lead­ing this pro­gramme ap­pear to ex­ert dis­pro­por­tion­ate in­flu­ence over Massy’s ex­ec­u­tive team.

At that time, Warn­er said that many of the group’s lead­ers and some board mem­bers had at­tend­ed the pro­gramme and that Parisot-Pot­ter would not be the first ex­ec­u­tive who has had dif­fi­cul­ty in a pro­gramme like this.

“We think a part of our se­cret at Massy is that we are will­ing to do this kind of work as lead­ers. It is the kind of work that we have done that al­lows us to have the re­sults the com­pa­ny shows. That is be­cause cul­ture eats strat­e­gy for break­fast,” he had said and added that build­ing con­nec­tion and trust with oth­er lead­ers, em­ploy­ees, cus­tomers and com­mu­ni­ties is a big part of Massy’s suc­cess.

In his memo, Warn­er said, “We want to be clear that, OUR SE­CRET TO OUR SUC­CESS IS OUR PEO­PLE WITH OUR CARIBBEAN HEART.”

He ac­knowl­edged that it could be an un­com­fort­able sit­u­a­tion for Massy staff.

“We are sad­dened that the ac­tions of one per­son be­came the main take­away that the pub­lic and in­deed you had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to view through the me­dia, in­stead of the growth and suc­cess­es of Massy over the past year, as we all worked, stronger than ever, to op­er­a­tionalise our vi­sion ‘A Glob­al Force for Good, An In­vest­ment Hold­ing Com­pa­ny with a Caribbean Heart.’”

“We are con­fi­dent, that like any fam­i­ly, we are stronger to­geth­er and so we en­cour­age you, should you have any con­cerns or ques­tions with re­spect to what is cer­tain­ly a very un­com­fort­able sit­u­a­tion for many of you, as you in­ter­act with cus­tomers, fam­i­ly and friends, that you reach out to the lead­er­ship with­in your port­fo­lio and ask any ques­tions or ex­press any con­cerns you may have.

“We al­so en­cour­age that with­in any hud­dles and team meet­ings, you en­cour­age open con­ver­sa­tion to ad­dress this sit­u­a­tion and let’s lean on each oth­er,” Warn­er said. Fol­low­ing the AGM which was cov­ered ex­clu­sive­ly by Guardian Me­dia, the com­pa­ny’s board of di­rec­tors is­sued a state­ment and said it was ap­palled by her con­duct and has ini­ti­at­ed a dis­ci­pli­nary process 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.”

How­ev­er, while dis­miss­ing her claims as “un­true” and “scan­dalous”, Massy said it ini­ti­at­ed an in­de­pen­dent process to look in­to her claims. At Mon­day’s meet­ing, Parisot-Pot­ter said, “This is a mat­ter of grave con­cern to share­hold­ers be­cause the cou­ple lead­ing the pro­gramme ap­pear to ex­ert dis­pro­por­tion­ate in­flu­ence over our ex­ec­u­tive team.

‘In the midst 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.”

The largest share­hold­er of Massy is the State through the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board–20 per cent; Re­pub­lic Bank Lim­it­ed (Trust & As­set Man­age­ment)–ten per cent; and the Unit Trust Cor­po­ra­tion–4.5 per cent. Com­bined they own 34.5 per cent of Massy.