A Letter From CEO Bobby Kotick to All Employees
July 27 2021 - 08:45PM
Business Wire
Activision Blizzard, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) CEO Bobby Kotick today
sent the following letter to all employees.
July 27, 2021
This has been a difficult and upsetting week.
I want to recognize and thank all those who have come forward in
the past and in recent days. I so appreciate your courage. Every
voice matters - and we will do a better job of listening now, and
in the future.
Our initial responses to the issues we face together, and to
your concerns, were, quite frankly, tone deaf.
It is imperative that we acknowledge all perspectives and
experiences and respect the feelings of those who have been
mistreated in any way. I am sorry that we did not provide the right
empathy and understanding.
Many of you have told us that active outreach comes from caring
so deeply for the Company. That so many people have reached out and
shared thoughts, suggestions, and highlighted opportunities for
improvement is a powerful reflection of how you care for our
communities of colleagues and players – and for each other.
Ensuring that we have a safe and welcoming work environment is my
highest priority. The leadership team has heard you loud and
clear.
We are taking swift action to be the compassionate, caring
company you came to work for and to ensure a safe environment.
There is no place anywhere at our Company for discrimination,
harassment, or unequal treatment of any kind.
We will do everything possible to make sure that together, we
improve and build the kind of inclusive workplace that is essential
to foster creativity and inspiration.
I have asked the law firm WilmerHale to conduct a review of our
policies and procedures to ensure that we have and maintain best
practices to promote a respectful and inclusive workplace. This
work will begin immediately. The WilmerHale team will be led by
Stephanie Avakian, who is a member of the management team at
WilmerHale and was most recently the Director of the United States
Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement.
We encourage anyone with an experience you believe violates our
policies or in any way made you uncomfortable in the workplace to
use any of our many existing channels for reporting or to reach out
to Stephanie. She and her team at WilmerHale will be available to
speak with you on a confidential basis and can be reached at
ATVI@wilmerhale.com or 202-247-2725. Your outreach will be kept
confidential. Of course, NO retaliation will be tolerated.
We are committed to long-lasting change. Effective immediately,
we will be taking the following actions:
- Employee Support. We will continue to investigate each and
every claim and will not hesitate to take decisive action. To
strengthen our capabilities in this area we are adding additional
senior staff and other resources to both the Compliance team and
the Employee Relations team.
- Listening Sessions. We know many of you have inspired ideas on
how to improve our culture. We will be creating safe spaces,
moderated by third parties, for you to speak out and share areas
for improvement.
- Personnel Changes. We are immediately evaluating managers and
leaders across the Company. Anyone found to have impeded the
integrity of our processes for evaluating claims and imposing
appropriate consequences will be terminated.
- Hiring Practices. Earlier this year I sent an email requiring
all hiring managers to ensure they have diverse candidate slates
for all open positions. We will be
adding compliance resources to ensure that our hiring managers are
in fact adhering to this directive.
- In-game Changes. We have heard the input from employee and
player communities that some of our in-game content is
inappropriate. We are removing that content.
Your well-being remains my priority and I will spare no company
resource ensuring that our company has the most welcoming,
comfortable, and safe culture possible.
You have my unwavering commitment that we will improve our
company together, and we will be the most inspiring, inclusive
entertainment company in the world.
Yours sincerely,
Bobby
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This press release may contain forward-looking statements within
the meaning of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of
1995. We may, in some cases, use terms such as “predicts,”
“believes,” “potential,” “proposed,” “continue,” “estimates,”
“anticipates,” “expects,” “plans,” “intends,” “may,” “could,”
“might,” “will,” “should” or other words that convey uncertainty of
future events or outcomes to identify these forward-looking
statements. Such statements are subject to numerous important
factors, risks and uncertainties that may cause actual events or
results to differ materially from the Company’s current
expectations. These and other risks are described in the Company’s
periodic reports, including the annual report on Form 10-K,
quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K,
filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission
and available at www.sec.gov. Any forward-looking statements that
the Company makes in this press release speak only as of the date
of this press release. The Company assumes no obligation to update
forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information,
future events or otherwise, after the date of this press
release.
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