A Deloitte vice-chairman is quitting after a drunken rant at Royal Ascot which was sexist, racist and bullying.
Stephen Cahill, a senior partner and one of the accountancy giant’s 25 vice-chairmen, ‘offended every collective group’ of minorities during his 30-minute tirade, sources told the Financial Times.
Most recently head of the firm’s executive compensation practice, Cahill will retire following 14 years at Deloitte.
Deloitte vice-chairman Stephen Cahill ‘offended every collective group’ of minorities during his 30-minute tirade, sources told the Financial Times
His departure follows an investigation into events on June 14, when around 30 Deloitte employees from Cahill’s department went to the Ascot horse races for a social event.
The 51-year-old went with a separate group of friends, but eventually joined his colleagues later in the day – by which point he was said to be very drunk.
He launched into a rant which was insulting to women and included an offensive comment about an ethnic minority employee, eyewitnesses told the FT.
The next day, Cahill – who is likely to have earned more than £1million a year at the Big Four accountant – called his colleagues to apologise and reported the incident to Deloitte.
This week, his colleagues were told he would retire. One insider told the Mail that they were ‘shocked’ he was retiring rather than being fired, given Deloitte’s former UK boss David Sproul had emphasised the firm’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy to ‘inappropriate behaviour’. An eyewitness to Cahill’s rant said: ‘Badging it as a retirement is not appropriate.’
Another said they felt they had to speak out given that Cahill’s job involved advising companies on how to include more women and minorities in their top ranks.
A Deloitte spokesman said: ‘Stephen Cahill is retiring from Deloitte. We don’t have any comment on Stephen’s retirement.’
His departure is not the first time that one of Britain’s Big Four bean-counters has found itself in hot water following an office jolly.
Earlier this year, PwC auditor Michael Brockie launched a lawsuit against the firm after an office-organised ‘pub golf’ outing ended up with him having part of his skull removed after he hit his head on the road.
The 28-year-old alleged the event encouraged ‘excessive consumption of alcohol’.
At EY, partner Neil Hutt resigned after he was reprimanded for telling a female trainee: ‘I am going to f**k you’, on a company ski trip.
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