Breach Of Trust

For women, taking part in the world of late-night dinners and after-work drinks—where so much of business really gets done—can be risky. It requires a leap of faith that they’ll be treated professionally, not pressured for sex. Investor and former Tronc chairman Michael Ferro betrayed that covenant, say these executives.

- Kristen Bellstrom & Beth Kowitt

KATHRYN MINSHEW felt like a weight had finally lifted. It was September 2013, and after months of back and forth, Michael Ferro, then chairman of investment firm Wrapports, had at last signed a term sheet promising her career-advice startup, The Muse, the $750,000 (Rs 4.96 crore) infusion of capital it needed to make it past the end of the year. Now, at Ferro’s suggestion, the two were headed to what he described as his company’s corporate apartment in downtown Chicago for an evening of takeout and a discussion of how The Muse might go on to land a much bigger round of funding. • But once they stepped into the apartment, Ferro seemed to forget about their plans to strategise. He poured two glasses of bourbon and, giving one to Minshew, put his hand on the back of her head and pulled her face in for a kiss, she says. Although the move was forceful enough that she couldn’t pull away, she says she was able to turn her head so that Ferro’s lips landed on her cheek.

“I stopped thinking in complete thoughts. My whole body felt like ice,” recalls Minshew. “I suddenly realised that I was alone in this apartment with him and that it might not be very easy to leave.”

Less than three years later, in Las Vegas during the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show, Hagan Kappler says she found herself in a similar position—at a private dinner in Ferro’s Aria hotel suite under the pretence of doing business. Kappler, then an executive at manufacturing giant Ingersoll Rand, thought she was there to talk thermostats with Ferro, who had recently sold his health care startup to IBM. Instead, Kappler says, he repeatedly wrapped his arms around her from behind. She told him he was in her space and that she didn’t like it. Then he did it again, this time groping her breast.