Ogilvy fires global CCO Tham Khai Meng

Ex-Ogilvy worldwide COO Tham Khai Meng | Twitter

According to an internal memo sent to staff from CEO John Seifert (below), these unspecified violations of company policy were brought to his attention two weeks ago and he found them to be serious enough to appoint external legal counsel to investigate the matter.

In the internal memo, CEO Seifert wrote:

Two weeks ago, I was informed of employee complaints regarding the behavior of Tham Khai Meng, Chief Creative Officer of The Ogilvy Group.

I found these complaints serious enough to appoint external legal counsel to investigate the matter.

After carefully reviewing the investigation’s findings with several of my partners, we concluded that Khai’s behavior was a clear breach of our company values and code of conduct. I have decided to terminate Khai’s employment with the company with immediate effect.

Each year, we ask every employee in the company to read, authorize, and fully commit to a code of conduct that each of us is responsible for living up to. Over the past 70 years, we have institutionalized shared values and a standard of professional behavior unique to the Ogilvy brand.

This is an important moment to reaffirm that no individual in this company is too senior or too important not to be held accountable for their actions.

Thank you for your support.

John Seifert
Chief Executive, Worldwide

• Ogilvy terminates chief creative Tham Khai Meng after employee complaints – AdAge
  
• Singaporean Tham Khai Meng fired from chief creative officer role at ad giant Ogilvy over alleged misconduct – The Straits Times