When One Executive Tanks Your Culture: Lessons From the Campbell Soup Scandal
- jrezvani
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
A wrongful dismissal lawsuit against Campbell’s alleges that a senior IT executive went on a profanity-filled tirade, calling the company’s products “food for poor people,” criticizing their quality and making racist remarks about Indian employees. The employee who recorded and reported the comments says he was later fired in retaliation. The executive has been placed on leave while the company investigates and Campbell’s has stated that the comments, if accurate, are unacceptable and do not reflect its values.
It is a PR mess, of course. But for HR and boards, the real story is not the quote that makes the headline. It is what this kind of incident reveals about culture, controls and accountability.
Below are five key lessons and some practical moves HR and boards can make now, before your organization ends up in the same headlines.
1. Tone at the top is not a slogan, it is a system
Most organizations have leadership values printed on walls and websites. The question is not what is printed. The question is who gets hired, promoted and protected.
When a senior executive mocks the company’s products and its customers, and uses racist language about colleagues, it does not just clash with the values statement. It signals that somewhere in the system, there were cracks:
In the executive hiring and promotion process
In performance and behaviour expectations for senior leaders
In how feedback and complaints about executives are handled
If you say “this behaviour does not reflect our values,” you need to be able to demonstrate that, historically, executives have actually faced consequences for similar behaviour.
Practical questions for HR and boards:
Do our leadership competencies and executive scorecards explicitly include culture, conduct and inclusion, or are they still mostly about financial and operational results?
When was the last time an executive was disciplined or exited for values misalignment, and what did staff see and hear about how that was handled?
Do we have the courage to remove “star performers” who are culture risks?
2. Whistleblower protection has to be real, not performative
In the Campbell’s case, the former employee says he reported the behaviour to his manager and was terminated weeks later, with no prior disciplinary record.
Whether or not the company ultimately proves that its decision was justified, the optics are devastating. When the person who reports misconduct is the one who ends up out of a job, every employee receives the message:
“Reporting is unsafe here.”
Once that belief sets in, problems do not disappear. They just go underground, until they surface as lawsuits, media stories or regulator interest.
What robust whistleblower protection should include:
Multiple reporting channels, including at least one external or independent route that does not rely on the employee’s direct manager
Clear anti-retaliation language in policy, reinforced regularly and referenced in investigations
Board-level oversight, usually through Audit, Governance or HR/Compensation, with regular reporting on the volume and type of cases
Follow-up communication, so reporters know their concern was taken seriously, even if they cannot be told every detail
If your whistleblower process exists mainly in a policy binder and not in practice, this is your early warning sign.
3. “Off the record” does not exist any more
In this case, the comments were allegedly captured in an audio recording by the employee during a one-on-one meeting.
Whether leaders like it or not, in a world of smartphones and single-party consent jurisdictions, any meeting can become public. In practical terms, that means:
If a comment would be indefensible in front of your board or in court, it should not be said in a “private” meeting.
Jokes, venting and unfiltered opinions are no longer harmless. Once recorded, they are evidence.
This is not about turning leaders into robots. It is about recognizing that senior roles come with an expectation of self-control, even under stress.
What HR can do:
Incorporate “leading in a recorded world” into leadership development. Talk frankly about risk, reputational exposure and how to vent safely.
Coach leaders on how to express dissent or frustration in ways that do not cross legal or ethical lines.
Train managers to assume that any conversation could be replayed to HR, the CEO or a regulator and to behave accordingly.
4. DEI failures are business risk failures
There is a tendency in some organizations to treat diversity, equity and inclusion as a “soft” topic: important, but secondary to “real” business issues.
This case shows how wrong that framing is. Racist and classist remarks by a senior executive are not just inappropriate. They are evidence of serious risk:
Potential discrimination claims from employees
Reputational damage with customers and investors
Loss of trust from racialized staff and communities
Scrutiny from regulators, funders or partners who have DEI or ESG expectations
In other words, DEI is not just about “doing the right thing.” It is about risk management and governance.
Board-level actions:
Ensure DEI and psychological safety are explicitly part of your risk register and board dashboards.
Ask for regular reporting on harassment and discrimination complaints, not just aggregate HR metrics.
Confirm that executives receive recurring, not one-time, training on bias, harassment, respectful leadership and the legal landscape.
5. Back-office leaders are culture carriers too
Another important detail: this was not a plant manager or front-line supervisor. It was a Vice President of Information Technology.
Too many organizations quietly treat some functions as “non-culture-critical.” IT, finance, legal, operations and shared services can be seen as technical roles where relational and cultural skills are “nice to have.”
That is a mistake. In hybrid and global environments, these leaders:
Control tools, systems and access that shape how people work
Influence how inclusive or hostile the day-to-day experience feels
Represent the organization to vendors, partners and cross-functional teams
If they are cynical about the product, dismissive of colleagues from certain backgrounds or openly contemptuous of customers, people notice.
Practical HR moves:
Apply the same behavioural and values expectations to IT, finance and other “back-office” executives as you do to customer-facing leaders.
Include 360 feedback or stakeholder input in performance reviews for these roles, not just technical metrics.
Screen for humility, cultural intelligence and respect in executive search processes, regardless of function.
What HR and boards can do now
You do not need a scandal to start tightening your own house. Use this case as a prompt for a short internal review:
Map your risk points
Identify the roles where an executive’s behaviour could cause outsized damage, whether through media exposure, internal trust or regulator attention.
Audit your whistleblower and investigation processes
Check whether staff know how to report, feel safe doing so and believe that complaints about senior people will be taken seriously.
Reinforce expectations with your leadership team
Do a targeted reminder on conduct, respectful workplace standards and what “tone at the top” actually looks like in meetings, emails and offsite conversations.
Review how you handle executive misconduct
Make sure there is a clear, pre-agreed protocol that involves HR and the board, not just the CEO, when allegations surface about senior leaders.
Communicate, do not just correct
If you ever do need to act on executive misconduct, think in advance about how you will communicate internally to rebuild trust without breaching confidentiality.
You cannot control every word that comes out of a leader’s mouth. You can control how rigorously you select them, what you tolerate and how you respond when they cross the line.
If this case raises questions about your own culture, governance practices or executive controls, we support boards and HR leaders with confidential reviews, audits and training designed to reduce risk before it becomes a headline. Reach out today to get started.