Alison Rose - different standards?

[TheGaffer]

Id always admired Alison since she landed the top job at NatWest and by all accounts she has had a really positive influence on the Bank, so was gutted with events over the last couple of weeks. My first thought upon hearing of her departure was…if she was a man, she’d still be in post….and then I read this and see I’m not the only one this occurred to…
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/27/was-alison-rose-held-to-higher-standard-because-woman?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
In many ways I admire her for stepping down so quickly (maybe she was unceremoniously ousted…guess we will never know) but also gutted as she always came across very well…calm, measured, authentic…a great role model as a leader. The actual circumstances of the discussion with the BBC seem really mild in comparison to some of the things other CEOs have done (and remained). Not justifying what she did…but did it justify her head?

I think she committed a serious breach of customer confidentiality and it was correct that she stood down.

No, the person who leaked lies to the BBC was always going to have to go because they leaked lies to the BBC and the lie included personal information about the customers bank account.

The male head of Coutts has gone too. Both have been held to the same standards.

Yes it's double standards. Look at the behaviour of some other CEOs (male) who are still in post including our Government. The Coutts guy should have gone though.

Doesnt it occur to people that if banks took a dislike to You because of some non-inclusive comment you made you could end up homeless, jobless or anything else less because how can you live nowadays without a bank account - would you stuff your savings under the bed? How pay for a new car/insurance/household bills, air flights - you’d either be in jail for non payment or starving.
She has spouted her inclusiveness and claims of forward thinking many times -I’m anti immigration, perhaps they’ll go after people like me next.

Giving out information about someone’s bank accounts has been an immediate sackable offence since time immemorial. She did this, to a journalist no less. I can’t fathom on what planet anyone could defend this. The male CEO of Coutts also had to resign.

No double standards , male CEO of Coutts also went , besides a lower ranked staff members of either sex had given out information on a customers account to the press they would have been out immediately. Unfortunately it was an incredibly bad decision she made.

Can you tell us what it is you are comparing her behaviour to?

I think it’s right she has gone. It was a pretty serious lack of judgment to tell a bbc journalist confidential info about a banking client. What was she thinking? Then apparently the journalist double checked it with her next day and she confirmed again.
She clearly didn’t think or realise what she was doing was wrong which is mind boggling. People get in trouble with gdpr for realising others email addresses by mistake!
I think she ( and the bbc) just didn’t think what she was doing was wrong in their echo Chamber as it was Nigel farage.
the chief executive has resigned too hasn’t he and he is male.
I think Rachel reeves is wrong on this too as she is/ was trying to spin it as “ sexism “

I saw that headline in the Graun but didn’t bother reading the article as it was so obviously bollocks.
The CEO of Coutts resigned because the bank they led treated a client disgracefully and that turned into a PR disaster. That person was a man. The CEO of Coutts’ parent company resigned because they breached client confidentiality to brief a journalist. That person was a woman.
Both deserved to lose their jobs, and the sex of both is entirely irrelevant.

In this scenario a man would have gone too, as others have said a man has lost his job also due to this.

What she did was appalling and she had to go otherwise a precedent would have been set that everyone should be horrified by no matter what your politics are.

The first rule of Fight Club is, you don't talk about Fight Club.
The first rule of banking is, you don't talk about customers!

She breached confidentiality. She gossiped about a customer, to a journalist. That demonstrates incredibly poor judgement on her part.

TBH, to salvage their reputation - and reputation is everything in banking - they should have sacked her, not let her resign.

No, I am not seeing double standards.

The actual circumstances of the discussion with the BBC seem really mild in comparison to some of the things other CEOs have done (and remained)

Perhaps the question should be, why did those CEO remain (and yes, I know the answer probably is that they're men). Rose breached a fundamental banking rule that would have had a lesser person in her bank out on their ear before they could turn around; and that's so egregiously stupid that you have to wonder what the hell was going through her head when she did it; then she doubled down and told Jack, yup, OK to publish.

No, not this time, OP.

Breaching the confidentiality obligations of your customers is a sackable offence. It is likely to be a regulatory breach too. She’s still in a lot of trouble. Rightly so. She has hugely damaged the Coutts brand to boot.

agree

He has now!

To be clear, she broke the law. She admitted breaking the law, in her job as CEO. Not due to some oversight but choosing to specifically brief a journalist, then following up the next day to confirm the briefing.

If it had been Jane or John at the cashier counter in your local branch they would have been gone within hours. She was kept on for several days. The scandal is not that she resigned several days after it was apparent she broke the law, it was she was not fired within hours like a junior staff member would have been.

She was an absolute disgrace and it’s right that she resigned.