Hall of Shame: 7 Ex-CEOs Who Were Ousted for Alleged Misconduct

These seven men allegedly let their power go to their heads.

Author:: Buster Coen
Publish date:: Jun 22, 2017 10:02 AM EDT

After several months of controversy, Travis Kalanick finally stepped down as CEO of Uber on Wednesday after investors called for his exit. Kalanick was accused of creating a culture at Uber that was permissive of sexual harassment and discrimination, backed up by alleged firsthand accounts from female employees. Although Kalanick will remain on the company's board of directors, he will no longer be calling the shots for Uber. However, he's not the first CEO to experience a fall from grace.

Here are seven other former CEOs who were forced out of their companies after allegations of misconduct.

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In August 2010, Hurd resigned from his position as CEO at Hewlett-Packard after having been enveloped by a sex scandal. He had been accused of sexual harassment about a month earlier by Jodie Fisher, who had worked as a greeter for HP company events. Though the probe by the HP board of directors found no evidence of sexual misconduct, it did unearth evidence of numbers-fudging in company expense reports. Hurd allegedly falsified these reports in order to mask his clandestine meetings with Fisher, which included a handful of expensive dinners. Though Hurd offered to repay the money, the board had turned against him and he handed in his resignation papers shortly thereafter.

Dov Charney, who had won acclaim early in his career for manufacturing clothes in the United States rather than overseas, was suspended from his CEO position in summer 2014. His reported boorish behavior had become well-known long before then. In a one deposition, he reportedly defended the use of the word "slut," and his habit of walking around American Apparel offices in his underpants had been spoofed on Saturday Night Live.Charney's alleged history with women was not fodder for comedic material, however. In a 2011 lawsuit, a former female employee accused Charney of using her as a sex slave. Though the board of directors cited misuse of company funds and misuse of corporate assets as the reason for his ouster, the company later made public more serious accusations, such as allegedly using ethnic slurs against employees and taping himself in sex acts with models and employees. Charney has dropped off the radar since his ouster.

Alternately known as "the most hated man in America" and "pharma bro," Shkreli's fall from grace was the center of a media circus. The public antagonism toward Shkreli came after the former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals bought antiparasitic drug Daraprim in 2015 and ballooned its price from $13.50 to $750 per pill. Shkreli became the embodiment of Big Pharma, and so it was with relish that the public read about his arrest by the FBI in December 2015. The young CEO was accused of setting up a Ponsi scheme in which he repeatedly lost money for investors and lied to them about it. He is currently free on bail pending trial.

Zenefits, a company that makes software for small businesses with an emphasis on health-insurance management, was only three years old when the firm became embroiled in its first major scandal. Buzzfeed broke a story that co-founder and CEO Conrad had allegedly created a software that allowed Zenefits employees to cheat on California's online-broker course. The revelation decimated the value of the company -- which was estimated at $4.5 billion just months earlier -- and Conrad resigned.

The late Roger Ailes weathered many a storm during his time at the Fox News division of Twenty-First Century Fox , but he couldn't overcome the sexual-harassment scandal that plagued him in summer 2016. In early July, former anchor Gretchen Carlson filed a sexual-harassment lawsuit against Ailes. This claim was allegedly corroborated by anchor Megyn Kelly, and followed by a flood of similar accusations by female employees. The firestorm was too much for the Murdoch family (which controls Fox). The Murdochs reportedly pressured Ailes into resigning, which he did on July 21. He may have walked away with a generous severance package of $40 million, but Fox's recent dismissals of Bill O'Reilly and Bob Beckel have shown that the company is serious about correcting the alleged locker-room culture that Ailes has been accused of creating at Fox News.Ailes died from complications of a subdural hematoma on May 18. He was 77.

In September 2016, Wells Fargo was slapped with a $100 million fine by the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as well as a bevvy of other fines from regulatory organizations. The big bank was under fire for sales practices that resulted in employees opening some 2 million accounts without the consent of its customers, in order to meet overoptimistic sales goals. When employees tried to raise the alarm on this practice, they were reportedly silenced by Wells Fargo executives, including (allegedly) Mr. Stumpf.The fallout from the scandal was significant. The company fired more than 5,000 employees and had to pay in excess of $150 million to settle lawsuits. Stumpf was called before Congress in late September and vowed to forego $41 million in unvested stock options to atone. This was not enough to appease the board of directors, however, and Stumpf was pressured into resignation on Oct. 12, 2016.

Kalanick's resignation on Wednesday comes as little shock given the media firestorm that has surrounded both him and Uber in recent times. The ex-CEO's alleged sexism has been known for some time -- in 2014, he reportedly joked about a women-on-demand service called "Boober." However, a February blog post from Susan Fowler, one of Uber's former engineers, claimed that Kalanick's reputed sexism had manifested itself in the workplace, creating a corporate atmosphere that included sexual harassment and discrimination. Kalanick's aggressive tactics in the taxi market have also led regulators to accuse Uber of breaking local laws and circumventing environmental regulations. Though it cannot be argued that Kalanick has left a lasting impact on the world in the form of Uber, the personal and societal implications of his actions -- like those of all of these ex-CEOs -- should not be ignored.

1. Mark Hurd, ex-CEO of Hewlett-Packard

In August 2010, Hurd resigned from his position as CEO at Hewlett-Packard
after having been enveloped by a sex scandal. He had been accused of sexual harassment about a month earlier by Jodie Fisher, who had worked as a greeter for HP company events. Though the probe by the HP board of directors found no evidence of sexual misconduct, it did unearth evidence of numbers-fudging in company expense reports. Hurd allegedly falsified these reports in order to mask his clandestine meetings with Fisher, which included a handful of expensive dinners. Though Hurd offered to repay the money, the board had turned against him and he handed in his resignation papers shortly thereafter.