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Published on : Monday, March 1, 2021
Experts have argued that executives who engage in so-called “vaccine tourism” took no notice of those less fortunate and a surprising lack of business insight.
These comments came after Mark Machin, the head of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, put down his papers after accepting that fact of travelling to Dubai to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
To quote Wojtek Dabrowski, managing partner of Provident Communications, “The reputational damage — the lasting scar of you being caught, outed and tarred and feathered in the public square over your decision to engage in vaccine tourism — will linger.” He explained that it will probably be some time until Machin, a highly revered money manager at one point of time, lands a new job, as majority of companies will be unwilling to have their names associated with his.
“You have to think about what kind of organization would take on a leader with this in their background,” Dabrowski said.
Also, the choice of traveling abroad for COVID-19 vaccines have raised many questions about the culture a person is all hopeful to grow in their company, he mentioned.
“As the CEO, the buck stops with you every time,” Dabrowski said. “Whether that’s on business performance, whether that’s on culture, or whether that’s on modelling the behaviour that you want to see elsewhere in the organization.”
He said that the Canada Pension Plan itself is probably to come out undamaged in this scenario, in part as Machin left his post quite quickly.
However, if the company is not so well-known or highly regarded to begin with, and doesn’t act swiftly to correct the situation, the actions of the executive could have broader proposition, he said.