SEC investigation, CEO apology, internal independent inquiry.
And we have a trifecta! In the wake of the revelations that Whole Foods CEO John Mackey posted messages about his company under a pseudonym to online financial discussion boards (more on which here and here), Whole Foods put out the following three press releases yesterday:
- SEC Contacts Whole Foods Market as it Begins Inquiry
- Apology Statement
- Whole Foods Market’s Board of Directors Begins Independent Internal Investigation Associated with Online Financial Message Board Postings
The first and third of these are typical corporate p.r. anaesthetic. As for Mackey’s apology, you can decide for yourself whether it’s sincere, pro forma, or merely cautious because of potential legal ramifications. Here it is, in full:
“I sincerely apologize to all Whole Foods Market stakeholders for my error in judgment in anonymously participating on online financial message boards. I am very sorry and I ask our stakeholders to please forgive me.”
Thoughts, anyone?
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What else could he do? His behaviour was highly unethical, perhaps criminal. He has for years been touting himself (on his own blog) as the paragon of transparency, and then it was revealed that for seven-plus years he was touting himself and his company, and ripping a competitor, under an alias. The guy’s hubris is so great it took him a week of heat to force him to apologize. Actually it took several days for the media and the blogosphere to really turn on him. Why? — see: http://jon8332.typepad.com/force_for_good/2007/07/wacky-mackey-ep.html
Jon: Good points here and in your blog post. I’ll follow up later today in another post of my own.
[...] the comments to yesterday’s post on Whole Foods, Jon Harmon made an excellent point, worthy of quoting at length here: What else [...]