), Jr. decided to sue the school for damaging his reputation but dropped the suit (64). Fired in 2019 for what he claimed was a consensual affair with a single subordinate, his severance package now totaling $105 million was clawed back by Mickey Ds lawyers late last year when it was revealed there were multiple women involved and he used company funds to pay one of them for sex (38). This led ultimately to an 11-count federal indictment in 2018 and conviction in early January 2022 on 4 involving wire fraud.
Bill Gates (Gates Foundation): Hitting a Wall. But not to worry, the two will still play a part in the foundation. Although the one-time opioid manufacturing powerhouse filed for bankruptcy in the wake of state lawsuits over its deceptive marketing practices that led to thousands of deaths and agreed to pay $8 billion in a settlement, some states also went after nearly $11 billion in assets held by the Sackler family that owned Purdue. The stock was delisted. 1. Apparently, the people pulling the strings in this puppet show think the rage firer can be rehabilitated so they sent him to a reeducation camp (most likely N. Korea) and within a few weeks, he was back on the job, the SPAC spat resolved for the time being (25, 26). This may not happen, however as the CEO of Better since 2014 gained instant notoriety after holding a two-minute Zoom meeting right before Christmas for 900 employees during which he told them if they were in the meeting, they were fired, accusing 250 of stealing from the company by working 2 hours a day and billing it for 8. Accounting fraud or other attempts at financial engineering of the books. This also factored into his MRS asking for and getting a divorce (67). Patrick Byrne (Former CEO, Overstock.com): Traveling Circus. These are mostly the same as used in the previous reports with a few examples included and some teases as well. Stankey also appeared last year. 1. As for Boeing, it paid the U.S. Department of Justice $2.5 billion for its part in the coverup, blaming two lower-level employees for lying about the safety of the plane (49). Mario Batali (Former CEO, Batali and Bastianich Hospitality Group): Time to Pay the Tab.
This involved a major bank and in 2019, the feds forced a change at the top for the second time. We would be remiss not to note that the individuals discussed here are the exception and not the rule. Carlos Ghosn [pronounced Gone] (Former CEO, Renault-Nissan Alliance): Gone, but Not Forgotten. She swindled a number of wealthy investors out of nearly a billion dollars with phony promises of a testing machine that could analyze a suite of parameters using a single drop of blood (41). However, this was not able to stop the credibility bleeding as a former project manager testified before Congress that the company was morally bankrupt and aware that it was harmful to young people as well as guilty of spreading false information and hate speech. More likely, 2021 was just a slow year like 2020 as companies played it safe and kept their management in place during the worst of the pandemic and things will pick up in 2022, especially if the markets crash. They arent going away and neither is Facebook. He was seeking $120 million in severance which both he and CBS agreed would instead, be paid to a charity (61). In the new economy, the Ponzi and Pyramid schemes of the last century live on as businesses involved in the solar and retail industries recently demonstrated. 2019s consensus Worst CEO of the year has bounced back after being fired by Boeing for covering up the problems with the 737 MAX airplane that led to two deadly crashes.
An online mortgage lender met this low bar in 2021. John May (CEO, Deere and Company): Reaping Whirlwind. Deborah Dugan, the former CEO of the organization that hosts the Grammy Awards, The Recording Academy settled her lawsuit with them for an undisclosed amount but the publicly revealed changes made will have a larger impact (62). 3. Bobby Kotick (CEO, Activision/Blizzard). That said, if your name shows up on multiple lists year after year, you are definitely doing something wrong! The team (which is 100% owned by him) was fined $10 million and he had to let his wife run the show for several months (34). IP says all the drama is getting in the way of the Vision whose stock price was down 35% in yet another shooting fish-in-barrel year on Wall Street. 1. Larry Culp (GE): Splitting Neutron Jacks Atom. The Court found the NCAA had for many years been in violation of federal antitrust laws because of its aggressive insistence that the amateur sports model prohibits student athletes from receiving any educational benefits outside of their athletic scholarships.. Peloton is a fitness equipment company targeting women who want to exercise in groups (27). DC Solar was a multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme run out of sunny California in which non-existent portable solar lighting was used to generate federal tax credits and a lavish lifestyle for the founders (58). Sentenced to more than 5 years in federal prison in January 2020 for masterminding a kickback scheme in which doctors were bribed at his behest to over prescribe a fentanyl-based cancer pain drug manufactured and sold by the company that led to numerous deaths and addictions, he finally began serving his sentence in 2021 (39). Kevin Marsh (Former CEO SCANA Energy): Electrical Wire Fraud. 1. 7. Zuckerberg and Tenev have made previous annual lists while this is Koticks debut. 4. Jenny Q and her pals were caught inflating profits by $300 million and fired. Jack Dorsey (Former CEO, Twitter): Flew the Coop. Publication of the so-called Facebook Papers in national media validated her claims that FB was only about the money. Something to look forward to. Instead, we bring in our closer with the story that MLB fired its own cable networks reporter Ken Rosenthal for critiquing the Commissioners handling of the pandemic in 2020 (18), the truth joining integrity on the leagues disabled list. Shai Wininger (CEO, Lemonade): Shorts Cited. Meanwhile, his accomplices in his great (or crate) escape to Beirut have been rounded up and are facing the music in Japan.
The not very reliable Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), charged with keeping the lights on in the Lone Star State was found to be out to lunch (actually many members didnt even live in Texas!)
When the scandal was exposed in 2019, the parents and 20 others were indicted on charges of mail fraud and money laundering. Of course, wouldnt it be great if the actual explanation is that going forward there arent going to be as many bad CEOs and all the ranting and raving that we and others in the business of business management oversight have engaged in about bad leadership are really making a difference? Management claims this is due to higher advertising costs as the economy has recovered from the pandemic. Fitness equipment sales appear to follow cycles and this one seems to be heading downhill. As a result, Kotick is out, not appearing in a pro forma new organizational chart released by MS. For this years comparison, we have chosen the ones published or presented by Deadspin.com (9), Jeffrey Sonnenfeld at Yale University (10), Fast Company.com (11), Investor Place.com (12) and Yahoo Finance.com (13). 3. Now its on everybodys radar. Or will an acquirer attempt to monetize Twitter? (Former CEO, Pilgrims Pride): Poultry Prosecution, The former CEOs federal prosecution along with executives from other chicken processors for price fixing resulted in a mistrial (37). The walkout was due to low wages for new hires and an El Cheapo pension plan. Its also illegal, falling under the corporate speak category of fiduciary responsibility or in this case, irresponsibility. Mark Zuckerberg (CEO, Meta Platforms, formerly Facebook): Moral Bankruptcy. Vlad Tenev (CEO, Robinhood): Robbing Hood, Securities regulators began investigating the company when it limited trading in Game Stop and AMC Entertainment during large price swings in the two stocks. This one shouldnt require further explanation except it happened.
Jayson Going to the Penn? Facebook is the poster boy for this one. Because Mark runs the biggest company of the three, he is the worst CEO of 2021 and probably destined to make a few more of these lists before he leaves or we stop publishing them. Can it be any more meta than that? A separate case filed in Boston has yet to be heard (35). The groping gourmet was still settling sexual assault and harassment complaints in 2021, coming to an agreement where he and the company would pay $600,000 to more than 20 former employees in New York. As long as CEOs meet the numbers for revenue, earnings and stock price appreciation (and dont make up the numbers) they must be doing a good job, assuming there arent other issues such as given below. 1. We all remember the images of Lehman Brothers 25,000 workers headed out the door with their personal items in cardboard boxes in the fall of 2008. CEO anxiety now, on the other hand seems to be largely fueled by the belief labor shortages and supply chain problems are here to stay and they will be held accountable.
Digging deeper, Garg did not inform the approximately 15% of the workforce they were being fired in advance and during the brief webinar, gave mostly generic reasons such as the market, efficiency, performances and productivity for the mass dismissal. Vishal Garg (CEO, Better.com): Possibly Worse. 2.2 Deadspin.com: Idiot Presidents and Commissioners, 2.3 Jeffrey Sonnenfeld: Expert Bad Managers, 2.6 Yahoo Finance.com: Winners are Losers. Robinhood made our list last year. However, since we live in the online video age, whats so wrong about the boss canning some staff this way? This time.
Just because a CEO left the company (retirement, took another job) or because the company is in a bad industry and generated poor results (e.g., victim of the pandemic) does not necessarily mean the CEO committed some act of wrongdoing or made a strategic blunder and is automatically to blame. 5. Flat out stealing customers money. However, most regulations are there for a reason and trying to sidestep them in the name of profit puts the entire business at risk as well as the public. We looked, but it appears they took the last train to the coast on this topic for this year, leaving us to sort through the debris field. In recent years reporters (14) and the #MeToo movement (15) identified many long-time high-profile corporate abusers. How about calling the police? In November, the company announced it would build a $17 billion semiconductor factory in Texas, clearly just a coincidence (55). 2. The number of votes represents the listers who listed them. In addition to the baddie stuff mentioned already, they added excessive alcohol consumption at company get togethers.
So, its buh-bye to Vishal, right? Singer helped the children of 33 wealthy individuals get admitted to prestigious colleges by arranging to have someone else take SAT and related entrance exams for them and creating phony records that they were outstanding athletes who could then gain admission through slots set aside for real ones (65). The listing criteria for those who did an analysis vary somewhat with most this time limiting their scope to publicly or about to be publicly held firms in the U.S.Our own list that comes later considers all companies, public, private, domestic and international as well as non-profits like universities and sports-governing bodies. 2. 2.3 Jefferey Sonnenfeld: Expert Bad Managers. Watch out, Qantas (51). Dr. Craig Landau (President and CEO, Purdue Pharma): Case Drug Out in Court. One of the newest challenges faced by CEOs is dealing with the so-called Great Resignation, in which millions have quit their jobs, leading to a labor shortage in many industries (7). Twice convicted of bribery, the Vice Chairman of the electronics giant was released from a South Korean prison only 6 months into a 2 and a half-year sentence in August 2021 on the urging of U.S. business leaders looking to end dependence on computer chips made overseas (54). See our 2019-2020 report for the back stories on these. John Kapoor (Former CEO, INSYS Therapeutics): Drug Dealer Under Lock and Key. Mark Emmert 1, Rob Manfred 1, Vishal Garg 1, John Foley1, Piotr Szulczewski1, Elizabeth Spaulding1, Shai Wininger1, John May1, Daniel Zhang 1, John Stankey 1, Mark Russell 1, Peng Zhao1, Elon Musk1. Although her case has received national attention due to the faux celebrity status she achieved, the dreadful INSYS saga along with the next one probably deserved equal if not top billing (43). With those points in mind, lets learn from the CEOs here who distinguished themselves and not in a good way, by their incompetence; dishonesty; failure; greed; insensitivity; abusive treatment of employees, customers and investors and general wrongdoing. Harvey Mason (CEO, The Recording Academy): Secret Award. To date, no acquisitions have been made. Not to worry, they show up again and again. 6. We should also add that the justifications for why CEOs made the lists may have developed over a number of years or been the result of particular actions/decisions in 2021. due to the obstinance of May they were on strike in October, reducing output by an estimated 10-15% for two quarters (32). Only two, Kotick and Szulczewski seem to have paid the ultimate price, loss of job. With the business publications mostly only covering publicly traded U.S. companies, the results are somewhat less than complete or conclusive. Peter Nygard (Former CEO, Nygard International): Coming to America. Developers are also fleeing, this time to other gaming companies as investors and shareholders both want Kotick gone. While not illegal, the shocking details of one management teams plundering of assets were only made clear when an IPO was proposed. The stock is also down 90% from its peak with declining sales and increasing losses. Daniel Snyder (Washington Football Team): NFL Justice. Mark Emmert (President, NCAA): Still Trying to Hog the Chili. If it ends badly, at least it wont be a surprise. Les Moonves (Former CEO, CBS): No Money for Molestor Moonves. The yard sale is next. In an economic period where equities are at all-time highs and so-called disruptor companies continue to emerge, the pressure to meet financial expectations has never been greater, although certain unicorns seem exempt. Facebook or whatever you want to call it these days received 8% of the vote, meaning more than 100 readers selected it as the worst company of the year and implicitly Mark Zuckerberg as the worst CEO. In our previous report, we spent several pages recounting the events leading up to rotating power blackouts in California in 2020 during a heat wave and the role various state agencies played. Robinhood is an online stock trading platform popular with young investors due its commission-free trading. In recent years, turnover at the top has accelerated as we noted in our last report with the leading cause ethical lapses. SPACs, by design are subject to much less oversight by financial regulators than standard IPOs which based on Muilenburgs history has ominous implications. Jurors said her explanations for the Theranos disaster were not believable. Another legal action to seize some of these is currently on hold (44). Vishal Garg does his best Donald Trump Apprentice firing imitation but creates the worst Zoom moment since Jeffrey Toobin. 1. After filing for bankruptcy protection in 2020 in the wake of more than 90,000 sexual abuse lawsuits dating back decades, BSA and abuse victims appear close to a settlement in the neighborhood of $2.7 billion covering 82,000 claims, roughly 5 times the initial offer (70). Because the combined list (business publications and our own) is so long, they have been grouped by category, but in no particular order of worstness. It was also accused of both over and under policing its content, the former by conservatives and the latter by liberals who claimed it had still not stopped the spread of misinformation about Covid-19. All this signaled something wrong with the companys finances and leadership, imperiling the SPAC merger. Some are still at it, while others have moved on or have been moved out or been locked up or are about to be. Our pick for Worst CEO in 2018 finally ended his civil litigation against CBS in 2021, brought about by his firing by Tiffany for sexually assaulting numerous actresses and other women over the years he was an executive at the network. Meanwhile, his 150,000 square foot compound in the Bahamas where a lot of his crimes were committed is said to be a mess, like his life. Vishal the Terminator is our title photo this time. This also applies to news and including fake news along with the real stuff is the information equivalent of trying to pass off chicken shit as chicken salad. 5. Pickings were rather slim no doubt due to continued worst CEO exhaustion after 2019, but we will hold our contest nonetheless. Deadspin, though, listed both him and MLB in their idiot roll call in positions 8 and 19 (dis)respectively for 2021, thus we felt obligated to review the evidence and ultimately decided he belonged this time. AAC is a special purpose acquisition company or SPAC that is already registered on NASDAQ and whose special purpose in this instance was to merge with Better.com, an online mortgage writer looking to go public and with an estimated valuation of $6.5 billion. It is also written to alert some of the corporations and their boards of directors whose bosses made the list to take corrective action and to serve as a warning to others not to make the same mistakes. Dennis Muilenburg (Former CEO and Chairman, Boeing): Life After Death. However, getting a surprise visit from HR and security and marched out the door or showing up for work and discovering there is no more work are all unsettling and life changing events. Securities fraudster and drug price jacker upper Shkreli is serving 7 years in federal prison. 2. We defer to the business writers judgment on most of these but have identified some notable omissions. The employees computers were also shut down at the end of the video, locking them out of the company virtually as well. That said the rule of caveat emptor still applies. Based in part on lists prepared by some of the premiere online business publications of today (Forbes.com, 24/7 Wall Street.com, Business Insider.com, Yahoo Finance.com, Motley Fool.com, etc.) Most of the CEOs are newcomers, but there are some repeat offenders. Making this list does not mean others are not just as deserving and we will name several we feel have been left out as well as fill in the gaps on others. Rob Manfred (Commissioner, Major League Baseball (MLB)): Time to Man Up. After scrolling through more than 50 pages of idiocy, we settled on two leaders, one whos been here before and the other for the first time but perhaps not the last. A category added in 2018, but not a new corporate transgression. Boy, thats a new one. Mark Zuckerberg3, Vlad Tenev3, Bobby Kotick 3, 2. 1. Ghosn, the fugitive former leader of various car companies is still living in Lebanon which has no extradition treaty with Japan who wants him back so he can be tried for embezzling up to $140 million disguised as compensation. He also trashed the laid off employees again in a later online townhall the same day (24). This involved the payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars to him and to university administrators and coaches. We will also provide an update on those from last year including some who are no longer with us in the corporate sense that is. Misleading investors about a possible sale of a company. In 2021, the company paid $230 million to the U.S. Department of Justice to settle charges brought against it over the illegal inducement (57). In the worst CEO report, we are aware of this and omit them. 2. 1. You are of course welcome to add to or subtract (doubtful) from the lists presented here. As a result, Google dropped it from its search results.
Bill Gates (Gates Foundation): Hitting a Wall. But not to worry, the two will still play a part in the foundation. Although the one-time opioid manufacturing powerhouse filed for bankruptcy in the wake of state lawsuits over its deceptive marketing practices that led to thousands of deaths and agreed to pay $8 billion in a settlement, some states also went after nearly $11 billion in assets held by the Sackler family that owned Purdue. The stock was delisted. 1. Apparently, the people pulling the strings in this puppet show think the rage firer can be rehabilitated so they sent him to a reeducation camp (most likely N. Korea) and within a few weeks, he was back on the job, the SPAC spat resolved for the time being (25, 26). This may not happen, however as the CEO of Better since 2014 gained instant notoriety after holding a two-minute Zoom meeting right before Christmas for 900 employees during which he told them if they were in the meeting, they were fired, accusing 250 of stealing from the company by working 2 hours a day and billing it for 8. Accounting fraud or other attempts at financial engineering of the books. This also factored into his MRS asking for and getting a divorce (67). Patrick Byrne (Former CEO, Overstock.com): Traveling Circus. These are mostly the same as used in the previous reports with a few examples included and some teases as well. Stankey also appeared last year. 1. As for Boeing, it paid the U.S. Department of Justice $2.5 billion for its part in the coverup, blaming two lower-level employees for lying about the safety of the plane (49). Mario Batali (Former CEO, Batali and Bastianich Hospitality Group): Time to Pay the Tab.
This involved a major bank and in 2019, the feds forced a change at the top for the second time. We would be remiss not to note that the individuals discussed here are the exception and not the rule. Carlos Ghosn [pronounced Gone] (Former CEO, Renault-Nissan Alliance): Gone, but Not Forgotten. She swindled a number of wealthy investors out of nearly a billion dollars with phony promises of a testing machine that could analyze a suite of parameters using a single drop of blood (41). However, this was not able to stop the credibility bleeding as a former project manager testified before Congress that the company was morally bankrupt and aware that it was harmful to young people as well as guilty of spreading false information and hate speech. More likely, 2021 was just a slow year like 2020 as companies played it safe and kept their management in place during the worst of the pandemic and things will pick up in 2022, especially if the markets crash. They arent going away and neither is Facebook. He was seeking $120 million in severance which both he and CBS agreed would instead, be paid to a charity (61). In the new economy, the Ponzi and Pyramid schemes of the last century live on as businesses involved in the solar and retail industries recently demonstrated. 2019s consensus Worst CEO of the year has bounced back after being fired by Boeing for covering up the problems with the 737 MAX airplane that led to two deadly crashes.
An online mortgage lender met this low bar in 2021. John May (CEO, Deere and Company): Reaping Whirlwind. Deborah Dugan, the former CEO of the organization that hosts the Grammy Awards, The Recording Academy settled her lawsuit with them for an undisclosed amount but the publicly revealed changes made will have a larger impact (62). 3. Bobby Kotick (CEO, Activision/Blizzard). That said, if your name shows up on multiple lists year after year, you are definitely doing something wrong! The team (which is 100% owned by him) was fined $10 million and he had to let his wife run the show for several months (34). IP says all the drama is getting in the way of the Vision whose stock price was down 35% in yet another shooting fish-in-barrel year on Wall Street. 1. Larry Culp (GE): Splitting Neutron Jacks Atom. The Court found the NCAA had for many years been in violation of federal antitrust laws because of its aggressive insistence that the amateur sports model prohibits student athletes from receiving any educational benefits outside of their athletic scholarships.. Peloton is a fitness equipment company targeting women who want to exercise in groups (27). DC Solar was a multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme run out of sunny California in which non-existent portable solar lighting was used to generate federal tax credits and a lavish lifestyle for the founders (58). Sentenced to more than 5 years in federal prison in January 2020 for masterminding a kickback scheme in which doctors were bribed at his behest to over prescribe a fentanyl-based cancer pain drug manufactured and sold by the company that led to numerous deaths and addictions, he finally began serving his sentence in 2021 (39). Kevin Marsh (Former CEO SCANA Energy): Electrical Wire Fraud. 1. 7. Zuckerberg and Tenev have made previous annual lists while this is Koticks debut. 4. Jenny Q and her pals were caught inflating profits by $300 million and fired. Jack Dorsey (Former CEO, Twitter): Flew the Coop. Publication of the so-called Facebook Papers in national media validated her claims that FB was only about the money. Something to look forward to. Instead, we bring in our closer with the story that MLB fired its own cable networks reporter Ken Rosenthal for critiquing the Commissioners handling of the pandemic in 2020 (18), the truth joining integrity on the leagues disabled list. Shai Wininger (CEO, Lemonade): Shorts Cited. Meanwhile, his accomplices in his great (or crate) escape to Beirut have been rounded up and are facing the music in Japan. The not very reliable Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), charged with keeping the lights on in the Lone Star State was found to be out to lunch (actually many members didnt even live in Texas!)
When the scandal was exposed in 2019, the parents and 20 others were indicted on charges of mail fraud and money laundering. Of course, wouldnt it be great if the actual explanation is that going forward there arent going to be as many bad CEOs and all the ranting and raving that we and others in the business of business management oversight have engaged in about bad leadership are really making a difference? Management claims this is due to higher advertising costs as the economy has recovered from the pandemic. Fitness equipment sales appear to follow cycles and this one seems to be heading downhill. As a result, Kotick is out, not appearing in a pro forma new organizational chart released by MS. For this years comparison, we have chosen the ones published or presented by Deadspin.com (9), Jeffrey Sonnenfeld at Yale University (10), Fast Company.com (11), Investor Place.com (12) and Yahoo Finance.com (13). 3. Now its on everybodys radar. Or will an acquirer attempt to monetize Twitter? (Former CEO, Pilgrims Pride): Poultry Prosecution, The former CEOs federal prosecution along with executives from other chicken processors for price fixing resulted in a mistrial (37). The walkout was due to low wages for new hires and an El Cheapo pension plan. Its also illegal, falling under the corporate speak category of fiduciary responsibility or in this case, irresponsibility. Mark Zuckerberg (CEO, Meta Platforms, formerly Facebook): Moral Bankruptcy. Vlad Tenev (CEO, Robinhood): Robbing Hood, Securities regulators began investigating the company when it limited trading in Game Stop and AMC Entertainment during large price swings in the two stocks. This one shouldnt require further explanation except it happened.
Jayson Going to the Penn? Facebook is the poster boy for this one. Because Mark runs the biggest company of the three, he is the worst CEO of 2021 and probably destined to make a few more of these lists before he leaves or we stop publishing them. Can it be any more meta than that? A separate case filed in Boston has yet to be heard (35). The groping gourmet was still settling sexual assault and harassment complaints in 2021, coming to an agreement where he and the company would pay $600,000 to more than 20 former employees in New York. As long as CEOs meet the numbers for revenue, earnings and stock price appreciation (and dont make up the numbers) they must be doing a good job, assuming there arent other issues such as given below. 1. We all remember the images of Lehman Brothers 25,000 workers headed out the door with their personal items in cardboard boxes in the fall of 2008. CEO anxiety now, on the other hand seems to be largely fueled by the belief labor shortages and supply chain problems are here to stay and they will be held accountable. Digging deeper, Garg did not inform the approximately 15% of the workforce they were being fired in advance and during the brief webinar, gave mostly generic reasons such as the market, efficiency, performances and productivity for the mass dismissal. Vishal Garg (CEO, Better.com): Possibly Worse. 2.2 Deadspin.com: Idiot Presidents and Commissioners, 2.3 Jeffrey Sonnenfeld: Expert Bad Managers, 2.6 Yahoo Finance.com: Winners are Losers. Robinhood made our list last year. However, since we live in the online video age, whats so wrong about the boss canning some staff this way? This time.
Just because a CEO left the company (retirement, took another job) or because the company is in a bad industry and generated poor results (e.g., victim of the pandemic) does not necessarily mean the CEO committed some act of wrongdoing or made a strategic blunder and is automatically to blame. 5. Flat out stealing customers money. However, most regulations are there for a reason and trying to sidestep them in the name of profit puts the entire business at risk as well as the public. We looked, but it appears they took the last train to the coast on this topic for this year, leaving us to sort through the debris field. In recent years reporters (14) and the #MeToo movement (15) identified many long-time high-profile corporate abusers. How about calling the police? In November, the company announced it would build a $17 billion semiconductor factory in Texas, clearly just a coincidence (55). 2. The number of votes represents the listers who listed them. In addition to the baddie stuff mentioned already, they added excessive alcohol consumption at company get togethers.
So, its buh-bye to Vishal, right? Singer helped the children of 33 wealthy individuals get admitted to prestigious colleges by arranging to have someone else take SAT and related entrance exams for them and creating phony records that they were outstanding athletes who could then gain admission through slots set aside for real ones (65). The listing criteria for those who did an analysis vary somewhat with most this time limiting their scope to publicly or about to be publicly held firms in the U.S.Our own list that comes later considers all companies, public, private, domestic and international as well as non-profits like universities and sports-governing bodies. 2. 2.3 Jefferey Sonnenfeld: Expert Bad Managers. Watch out, Qantas (51). Dr. Craig Landau (President and CEO, Purdue Pharma): Case Drug Out in Court. One of the newest challenges faced by CEOs is dealing with the so-called Great Resignation, in which millions have quit their jobs, leading to a labor shortage in many industries (7). Twice convicted of bribery, the Vice Chairman of the electronics giant was released from a South Korean prison only 6 months into a 2 and a half-year sentence in August 2021 on the urging of U.S. business leaders looking to end dependence on computer chips made overseas (54). See our 2019-2020 report for the back stories on these. John Kapoor (Former CEO, INSYS Therapeutics): Drug Dealer Under Lock and Key. Mark Emmert 1, Rob Manfred 1, Vishal Garg 1, John Foley1, Piotr Szulczewski1, Elizabeth Spaulding1, Shai Wininger1, John May1, Daniel Zhang 1, John Stankey 1, Mark Russell 1, Peng Zhao1, Elon Musk1. Although her case has received national attention due to the faux celebrity status she achieved, the dreadful INSYS saga along with the next one probably deserved equal if not top billing (43). With those points in mind, lets learn from the CEOs here who distinguished themselves and not in a good way, by their incompetence; dishonesty; failure; greed; insensitivity; abusive treatment of employees, customers and investors and general wrongdoing. Harvey Mason (CEO, The Recording Academy): Secret Award. To date, no acquisitions have been made. Not to worry, they show up again and again. 6. We should also add that the justifications for why CEOs made the lists may have developed over a number of years or been the result of particular actions/decisions in 2021. due to the obstinance of May they were on strike in October, reducing output by an estimated 10-15% for two quarters (32). Only two, Kotick and Szulczewski seem to have paid the ultimate price, loss of job. With the business publications mostly only covering publicly traded U.S. companies, the results are somewhat less than complete or conclusive. Peter Nygard (Former CEO, Nygard International): Coming to America. Developers are also fleeing, this time to other gaming companies as investors and shareholders both want Kotick gone. While not illegal, the shocking details of one management teams plundering of assets were only made clear when an IPO was proposed. The stock is also down 90% from its peak with declining sales and increasing losses. Daniel Snyder (Washington Football Team): NFL Justice. Mark Emmert (President, NCAA): Still Trying to Hog the Chili. If it ends badly, at least it wont be a surprise. Les Moonves (Former CEO, CBS): No Money for Molestor Moonves. The yard sale is next. In an economic period where equities are at all-time highs and so-called disruptor companies continue to emerge, the pressure to meet financial expectations has never been greater, although certain unicorns seem exempt. Facebook or whatever you want to call it these days received 8% of the vote, meaning more than 100 readers selected it as the worst company of the year and implicitly Mark Zuckerberg as the worst CEO. In our previous report, we spent several pages recounting the events leading up to rotating power blackouts in California in 2020 during a heat wave and the role various state agencies played. Robinhood is an online stock trading platform popular with young investors due its commission-free trading. In recent years, turnover at the top has accelerated as we noted in our last report with the leading cause ethical lapses. SPACs, by design are subject to much less oversight by financial regulators than standard IPOs which based on Muilenburgs history has ominous implications. Jurors said her explanations for the Theranos disaster were not believable. Another legal action to seize some of these is currently on hold (44). Vishal Garg does his best Donald Trump Apprentice firing imitation but creates the worst Zoom moment since Jeffrey Toobin. 1. After filing for bankruptcy protection in 2020 in the wake of more than 90,000 sexual abuse lawsuits dating back decades, BSA and abuse victims appear close to a settlement in the neighborhood of $2.7 billion covering 82,000 claims, roughly 5 times the initial offer (70). Because the combined list (business publications and our own) is so long, they have been grouped by category, but in no particular order of worstness. It was also accused of both over and under policing its content, the former by conservatives and the latter by liberals who claimed it had still not stopped the spread of misinformation about Covid-19. All this signaled something wrong with the companys finances and leadership, imperiling the SPAC merger. Some are still at it, while others have moved on or have been moved out or been locked up or are about to be. Our pick for Worst CEO in 2018 finally ended his civil litigation against CBS in 2021, brought about by his firing by Tiffany for sexually assaulting numerous actresses and other women over the years he was an executive at the network. Meanwhile, his 150,000 square foot compound in the Bahamas where a lot of his crimes were committed is said to be a mess, like his life. Vishal the Terminator is our title photo this time. This also applies to news and including fake news along with the real stuff is the information equivalent of trying to pass off chicken shit as chicken salad. 5. Pickings were rather slim no doubt due to continued worst CEO exhaustion after 2019, but we will hold our contest nonetheless. Deadspin, though, listed both him and MLB in their idiot roll call in positions 8 and 19 (dis)respectively for 2021, thus we felt obligated to review the evidence and ultimately decided he belonged this time. AAC is a special purpose acquisition company or SPAC that is already registered on NASDAQ and whose special purpose in this instance was to merge with Better.com, an online mortgage writer looking to go public and with an estimated valuation of $6.5 billion. It is also written to alert some of the corporations and their boards of directors whose bosses made the list to take corrective action and to serve as a warning to others not to make the same mistakes. Dennis Muilenburg (Former CEO and Chairman, Boeing): Life After Death. However, getting a surprise visit from HR and security and marched out the door or showing up for work and discovering there is no more work are all unsettling and life changing events. Securities fraudster and drug price jacker upper Shkreli is serving 7 years in federal prison. 2. We defer to the business writers judgment on most of these but have identified some notable omissions. The employees computers were also shut down at the end of the video, locking them out of the company virtually as well. That said the rule of caveat emptor still applies. Based in part on lists prepared by some of the premiere online business publications of today (Forbes.com, 24/7 Wall Street.com, Business Insider.com, Yahoo Finance.com, Motley Fool.com, etc.) Most of the CEOs are newcomers, but there are some repeat offenders. Making this list does not mean others are not just as deserving and we will name several we feel have been left out as well as fill in the gaps on others. Rob Manfred (Commissioner, Major League Baseball (MLB)): Time to Man Up. After scrolling through more than 50 pages of idiocy, we settled on two leaders, one whos been here before and the other for the first time but perhaps not the last. A category added in 2018, but not a new corporate transgression. Boy, thats a new one. Mark Zuckerberg3, Vlad Tenev3, Bobby Kotick 3, 2. 1. Ghosn, the fugitive former leader of various car companies is still living in Lebanon which has no extradition treaty with Japan who wants him back so he can be tried for embezzling up to $140 million disguised as compensation. He also trashed the laid off employees again in a later online townhall the same day (24). This involved the payment of hundreds of thousands of dollars to him and to university administrators and coaches. We will also provide an update on those from last year including some who are no longer with us in the corporate sense that is. Misleading investors about a possible sale of a company. In 2021, the company paid $230 million to the U.S. Department of Justice to settle charges brought against it over the illegal inducement (57). In the worst CEO report, we are aware of this and omit them. 2. 1. You are of course welcome to add to or subtract (doubtful) from the lists presented here. As a result, Google dropped it from its search results.