Earlier this year, an email was sent to all employees of Activision Blizzard from the email account of chief compliance officer, former executive sponsor of the ABV Employee Women’s Network, and former torture apologist, Fran Townsend. Sent in the midst of historic allegations of harassment against the company, it was so bad that it was one of the direct, cited causes of a staff walkout.
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Today, somehow, this email has returned and become even more explosive, with the Wall Street Journal reporting that Townsend didn’t even write it.
The email was one of the most tone-deaf, oblivious pieces of executive hand-waving you will ever see. It was sent right in the middle of allegations that shook a major publisher to its core, and led to a number of high-profile firings and resignations, dragging both Activision and Blizzard’s names through the mud for much of 2021. The email had the nerve to call the lawsuit sparking those moves as having “presented a distorted and untrue picture of our company.” It went on to say that Townsend was “proud to be part of a company that takes a hard-line approach to inappropriate or hostile work environments and sexual harassment issues,” despite everything that had just happened, and was about to happen.
Here it is in full, in case you’ve yet to see the whole thing:
The email understandably enraged employees, led to Townsend stepping down from her role as executive sponsor of the Activision Blizzard Women’s Network, and to this day remains one of the most spectacularly ill-judged pieces of damage control from the company, in a year where those have become all-too-common.
Now the WSJ reports that it was in fact besieged Activision Blizzard boss Bobby Kotick who wrote it. The story says that Kotick, who “approves most internal companywide emails, as well as media responses,” drafted the email himself. He then directed that it be sent under Townsend’s name, likely because she was one of the few women executives at a company run predominantly by men.
An Activision rep responding to the WSJ’s reporting, saying Kotick now “takes responsibility for the incident and regrets it,” and adds, “Ms. Townsend should not be blamed for this mistake.” If you remember at the time, Kotick criticised the email as having been “tone deaf,” despite the fact that it now turns out he wrote it himself.
