A CEO’s canoodling with his company’s human resources chief – caught on the “kiss cam” at a Coldplay concert – made global headlines this summer. Beyond the memes and tabloid fodder, personal lives were shattered and a company was left in turmoil after its leader’s sudden exit.
The case, involving the AI firm Astronomer, may be the most visible of recent CEO personal scandals – think sex affairs, drug abuse or embarrassing behavior – but it’s not an isolated incident. Just weeks following the Coldplay “kiss cam,” the CEO of Nestlé was shown the door for similar behavior involving a relationship with a subordinate. Personal scandals have been the top cause of CEO terminations in recent years.
How do these scandals stack up to other corporate indiscretions, such as financial fraud? As a management professor, I knew that there’s lots of research on CEOs’ financial crimes, but surprisingly little on personal misdeeds.
