International Courant
The story of how Shanti Stanton and Steve Elmendorf fashioned a decades-long work partnership is a basic Washington story.
It began on Capitol Hill in 1995: Stanton was a latest school grad and Elmendorf was a prime aide to Richard Gephardt, then the Democratic chief within the Home. Elmendorf introduced her on board and served as her boss and mentor.
Then it moved to Okay Road: When Elmendorf opened his personal lobbying store in 2007, Stanton turned one among his early hires. She labored for him for greater than 15 years.
Final 12 months, nonetheless, their skilled relationship imploded when Stanton and one other feminine senior govt had been abruptly fired in what they had been advised was a cost-cutting transfer. Stanton and her colleague, Audrey Chang, ready to sue the agency for gender discrimination and a hostile work surroundings, amongst different accusations.
The 2 ladies claimed they’d been terminated regardless of being prime performers on the agency, then referred to as Topic Matter. The agency declined to touch upon its reasoning for the dismissals.
In a draft criticism, they alleged a litany of unhealthy habits. Elmendorf, a outstanding lobbyist and Democratic donor, and Paul Frick, one other one of many agency’s founding companions, had been named as defendants within the draft lawsuit.
“As one of many first workers of Topic Matter, I watched the agency develop rapidly, making tens of tens of millions [of dollars] by advertising their entry to senior feminine and progressive leaders,” Stanton mentioned in a press release to POLITICO previous to settling with the agency. “But, ladies at Topic Matter had been by no means made or considered as companions on this journey. Against this, there was widespread discrimination in a boys’ membership tradition that intimidated and discarded us.”
In her personal assertion earlier than the settlement, Chang mentioned: “I’ve labored at a variety of public relations and public affairs corporations in D.C. over the course of 30 years — with many white male leaders — however it wasn’t till I received to Topic Matter that I noticed first-hand, and was subjected to, constant, prime to backside disdain and lack of respect for girls, our voices and our contributions.”
Though the 2 sides settled earlier than a lawsuit was filed, the state of affairs has put a agency that helps big-name shoppers handle their reputations and advocate for his or her causes within the uncomfortable place of getting to defend its personal actions.
The conflict is a uncommon occasion of feminine executives taking up the alleged misconduct of their former employers, and it might sign a cultural shift within the male-dominated world of Washington lobbying. Following her departure, Stanton mentioned that roughly two dozen ladies detailed to her their “equally distressing experiences” on the agency, prompting her to talk out.
Nonetheless, all however a number of former workers of the agency had been granted anonymity to talk for this story, fearing retaliation.
A lawsuit risk, then a settlement
POLITICO obtained the 46-page draft lawsuit earlier than final 12 months’s settlement, the phrases of which weren’t disclosed. Although not the entire draft’s claims may very well be corroborated, interviews with about three dozen former workers of the agency present that Stanton and Chang weren’t alone of their experiences. Twenty-eight of the previous workers reported experiencing or witnessing some sexist therapy whereas on the agency.
Among the many complaints from the departed workers: receiving undesirable feedback about their look, being berated or yelled at by their bosses, having their concepts shut down, and seeing credit score for his or her work taken by males. Some males had been advocates for girls, however many others “failed upward,” within the phrases of a number of former workers.
CEO Nicole Cornish mentioned in a press release that the overarching allegation made by former workers that Topic Matter was a poor office for girls is “inconsistent with the information of who we’re and the agency now we have constructed.”
“Since 2018, 80 p.c of all promotions on the agency have been ladies,” she mentioned. “Our chief govt officer, chief working officer, head of expertise, 40 p.c of our companions and 52 p.c of the senior management staff, are all ladies. We could also be male based, however we’re feminine led.”
Cornish added in an interview that workers who really feel they don’t have a path for development, or that their concepts will not be taken significantly, “are very actual issues.”
However she mentioned that have isn’t unique to ladies. “I’m not attempting to counsel that each single individual goes to stroll away from Topic Matter having a constructive expertise,” she mentioned. “I’m merely suggesting that that’s not particular to gender.”
The agency declined to reply different questions for this story.
Topic Matter, which rebranded to Avoq in January, is a one-stop-shop for shoppers in want of advocacy, promoting, public relations and occasion companies. It’s develop into a significant participant in D.C.’s lobbying and PR world, counting blue-chip firms together with Amazon, Boeing, Meta and Pfizer as its shoppers.
In 2022, non-public fairness agency Coral Tree Companions acquired a portion of the agency, and Topic Matter merged with public affairs agency Kivvit final Might. The mixed agency, Avoq, has almost $100 million in consumer charges, in line with the trade publication PRovoke Media.
Though Cornish turned Topic Matter’s COO in 2017 and CEO in 2021, the agency has been largely managed by the 4 male companions. In January, Avoq promoted 14 folks to associate, together with six ladies.
A breaking level
A majority of ladies who spoke with POLITICO mentioned the agency’s male leaders have had disproportionate sway and decision-making energy, in comparison with ladies at senior ranges. One of many males is co-founder Frick, who was often named in each the draft lawsuit and the interviews for allegedly mistreating ladies.
One former worker recalled that Frick belittled her feminine boss throughout a presentation for a potential consumer. That worker, Annie Plotkin, mentioned Frick had pitched the potential consumer on a public affairs marketing campaign. However the knowledge she and the top of the digital staff, Hastie Afkhami, performed didn’t help the narrative he’d bought the consumer.
Even after Plotkin and Afkhami tried to make the analysis match what Frick wished, Plotkin mentioned, Frick “referred to as [Afkhami] out in entrance of the consumer,” claiming the info was incorrect.
“I knew that she wasn’t unsuitable as a result of I had labored on the fabric that she was speaking about,” Plotkin mentioned of Afkhami. “I learn it as a breaking level of their relationship as a result of she left fairly quickly after that. It undoubtedly turned me off to Paul and dealing there — that didn’t really feel good.”
“What I skilled” on the agency, Plotkin added, “is seeing account managers who’re ladies who’re breaking their backs and being often reprimanded by Paul. There have been males in additional senior positions that had been celebrated and prioritized and brought extra significantly, even when it didn’t seem to me that they had been working wherever close to as onerous.”
Afkhami confirmed the anecdote however declined to remark additional.
“The second Paul had an opinion about you, it by no means modified,” a second former worker mentioned of Frick. “So when you tousled on one factor, that was your scarlet letter for the remainder of your life there. In case you tousled one time, you usually tend to be mechanically dismissed for any subsequent factor, even when it’s not even associated.”
Frick didn’t reply to a request for remark.
‘In order that they wouldn’t see me cry’
Within the fall of 2019, Topic Matter performed a “tradition evaluation” that measured how workers felt about working on the agency.
In accordance with a slide deck of the outcomes obtained by POLITICO, solely 9 p.c of ladies described themselves as “promoters” of the agency. Almost half the ladies who responded had been “detractors” and the rest referred to as themselves “passive.” Males on the agency had been roughly equally cut up between being promoters, detractors and passive.
A 3rd former worker mentioned that subsequent surveys had been extra rare and imprecise of their wording about employee sentiment, making year-to-year comparisons tough.
The overwhelming majority of complaints POLITICO heard from ex-employees had been from individuals who had expertise with Topic Matter’s communications facet, run by Frick and Dan Sallick, who didn’t reply to a request for remark.
One former employee who had a principally constructive expertise at Topic Matter nonetheless mentioned she observed a disparity in how women and men had been handled. Males got a number of possibilities to succeed: In the event that they didn’t work out on a selected consumer, they might be moved round to a different alternative. Girls, in her expertise, weren’t afforded such second possibilities.
Greater than a dozen folks recounted that males on the general public affairs facet of the agency had been routinely given extra alternatives to advance than their feminine counterparts — whereas ladies shouldered a lot of the work.
“The vast majority of entry-level workers are younger ladies. To construct a agency on the labor and creativity and concepts of younger ladies who then don’t see a transparent path for themselves at that agency, to then in the end prop up the 4 white male companions — that’s what stood out to me most as an unlucky tradition,” one of many former workers mentioned.
Three different former workers mentioned it wasn’t unusual to see feminine colleagues crying within the workplace. Certainly one of them mentioned she would see folks go into companions’ places of work and “would see them go away in tears … it simply wasn’t a superb state of affairs.”
In a single worker’s remaining evaluation earlier than she left the agency a number of years in the past, she was advised by Frick that she was “too vanilla” and that “now we have purchaser’s regret from hiring you,” in line with two contemporaneous textual content messages she despatched to a colleague and a good friend. “I ran out of the room as fast as I might in order that they wouldn’t see me cry,” the individual mentioned in one of many texts.
This former Topic Matter worker mentioned her lawyer obtained three calls from a lawyer for Avoq in mid-April telling her that the agency knew she was chatting with POLITICO to provide unflattering details about the agency, outreach that she considered as intimidation.
Chang, within the draft lawsuit, mentioned that males in management would push concepts throughout conferences “no matter whether or not they had been on monitor strategically, helped advance objectives, or had been reasonable inside consumer parameters.”
For example, Kevin Richards, the agency’s chief inventive officer, was “usually dismissive of ladies’s experience, concepts, questions, and contributions,” Chang asserted.
Plotkin described Richards as “an enormous concepts man” who would “sit on the desk and put his palms behind his head” to speak about how issues must be executed. “In the meantime, the feminine account managers are sitting there attempting to consider how that’s going to realistically be executed.”
Richards, who was amongst these promoted to associate earlier this 12 months, didn’t reply to a request for remark.
‘I trusted you and that is what you do?’
Stanton and Chang wrote of their draft declare that they had been terminated regardless of being among the many agency’s prime performers.
Stanton alleged that Topic Matter dealt with her firing in a means that disadvantaged her of fairness, compensation and bonuses she had been promised.
She additionally mentioned Elmendorf pulled a bait and swap, first by convincing her to dump her shares in Topic Matter amid an funding by non-public fairness agency Coral Tree Companions, with the peace of mind that she would get fairness within the new agency.
In pressuring her to signal the acquisition settlement, Stanton claimed Elmendorf mentioned the deal would fall by way of if she didn’t, including: “We’re all going to make some huge cash. Please simply signal them. We have now to get this deal by way of earlier than Nancy Pelosi isn’t Speaker anymore…”
After she signed the doc, Elmendorf made repeated mentions of her future on the agency, she mentioned, together with saying he would discover methods for her to earn more cash.
Nevertheless, Stanton mentioned the temper shifted in January 2023, shortly after she had renewed all her consumer contracts. In March, she was referred to as into a gathering and notified she was being let go, following “strain” from the non-public fairness agency to scale back prices.
She was the one individual terminated from the federal government affairs facet of the agency, regardless of her constructive efficiency evaluations and lengthy tenure. “You advised me every part was going to be OK,” she mentioned when she confronted Elmendorf, per the draft lawsuit. “I trusted you and that is what you do?”
Within the draft declare, she mentioned Elmendorf responded “below his breath” that there had been a “draw out clause” within the buy settlement she’d signed. Stanton was given 9 days’ discover earlier than she needed to go away the agency on March 31.
Elmendorf didn’t reply to a request for remark.
A title bump rebuffed
Chang had a shorter however nonetheless substantial historical past on the agency. She joined Topic Matter in 2018 to launch its strategic communications apply, given the title of senior vice chairman.
Within the draft criticism, she mentioned that she started elevating the problem of an absence of gender and racial variety even earlier than she was employed — declaring that the 4 companions working the agency had been males and many of the different senior management was additionally male. Chang, who’s Asian American, additionally alleged within the criticism that the agency engaged in racially discriminatory habits.
Although she claimed that she didn’t obtain a efficiency evaluation till three years into the job, she mentioned Frick, her boss, gave her excessive marks. Her staff gained a number of awards for his or her work, together with one for a marketing campaign created for the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.
However when she requested for a title bump to govt vice chairman in her 2021 and 2022 efficiency evaluations to mirror the extent of labor she was doing — and produce her according to male colleagues — she was rebuffed. Chang was advised to attend till the transaction with Coral Tree Companions had been accomplished, although at the very least one different man was promoted to govt vice chairman throughout this time, she mentioned.
In Might 2023, Chang believed that Topic Matter had come to view her as an ally of Stanton and a possible witness to her preliminary allegations of discrimination.
The next month, Chang and her total staff — one of the various on the agency — had been laid off. It got here days after she’d identified an absence of variety on a name with Topic Matter and Kivvit leaders, and never lengthy after Stanton despatched her demand letter to the agency.
A number of former workers advised POLITICO they had been assured their jobs could be protected following the merger with Kivvit. The staff had solely been given every week’s discover earlier than they had been out of a job, they mentioned.
Some constructive marks
4 of the ladies POLITICO contacted for this story disputed that Topic Matter was a poor place for girls to work.
Being a lady didn’t pose any issues for them to succeed on the agency, they mentioned. One who was on an all-women staff mentioned she had an excellent expertise at Topic Matter. One other mentioned that she didn’t observe ladies being handled in a different way within the workplace, whereas a 3rd mentioned she left as a result of she didn’t need to work at an company, not due to any discrimination based mostly on her gender.
“My brief time (3 years) there was nothing however constructive,” Lisa Cullen, who labored for Topic Matter and a predecessor agency as an account supervisor from 2014 to 2016, mentioned in a textual content message. “The corporate all the time regarded for methods to develop me professionally. I all the time felt supported by Dan [Sallick] and Paul [Frick], who I’ve identified for greater than 20 years.”
However the predominant sentiment amongst former feminine workers who spoke to POLITICO — and some males as effectively — went within the different route.
“In this sort of work surroundings, it’s simpler to attempt to keep away from the unhealthy actors, look the opposite means and preserve the blinders on, however that’s how this mistreatment is allowed to proceed,” Chang mentioned earlier than the settlement. “There’s super strain to remain silent. However I additionally know that it’s not simply me, that there are dozens of proficient ladies who’ve been pushed out of Topic Matter.”
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