Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus is the latest company being accused of gender and racial discrimination in their hiring practices, but this time it’s for allegedly failing to recruit and promote enough straight men.
At the center of the firestorm is the company’s Belgian-born gay CEO, Geoffroy van Raemdonck, who an anonymous group of Neiman Marcus employees claim only hires “men who are gay and/or European” and “white and Asian women,” according to the NY Post.
Raemdonck has been CEO since 2018 and previously worked at Ralph Lauren and Louis Vuitton.
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The employees first made their accusations against him in a December post on the anonymous blogging platform Telegra.ph, where they said they analyzed his hiring practices for more than 30 senior level positions.
“Geoffroy hires externally and does not like to promote from within. He prefers to hire white and Asian women. And then he favors men who are gay and/or European. Just like him,” read the post.
Former A&F CEO Mike Jeffries has been accused of abusing and exploiting male models.
The employee group is said to consist of “five or less” individuals of which two are women. Though the the sexual orientation of the group of employees has not been disclosed, they shared their outrage over the plight of heterosexual men within the organization.
“The typical straight US male has been ignored and has been hired one time,” the post continued. “Statistically this is impossible unless it’s by design.”
The company took the accusations seriously and hired an outside law firm to investigate the situation further.
In an email to the NY Post, Neiman Marcus claimed the unnamed law firm found “no evidence” that Raemdonck or other managers “engaged in the conduct described in the allegations.”
The company refuted the allegations further by pointing out their proven track record of hiring heterosexual men and a sprinkling of non-white employees.
“13 straight men represent almost over 30% of the senior hires and promotion,” Neiman Marcus said in their statement, adding that it promoted “16 leaders from within” including “4 white, straight men; 1 Asian man and 1 black woman.”
The company also disclosed it “hired and promoted 9 straight, white men; 3 straight minority men; 1 Hispanic woman.”
Translation: Neiman Marcus is like most companies and employs lots of white, straight dudes.
Prior to the accusations of having an affinity for employing gay men, Raemdonck shared a video highlighting the company’s diversity efforts and “culture of belonging” as part of Neiman Marcus’ Pride Month initiative.
In a follow-up email to the Daily Mail, Neiman Marcus reiterated the outside law firm’s conclusion by stating, “We followed our protocols and conducted an independent investigation, which determined that the allegations were completely unfounded.”
This isn’t the first time Raemdonck, who shares two sons with his interior designer husband Alvise Orsini, has faced controversy during his tenure at Neiman Marcus.
In 2020, he received flack for continuing to receive big bonuses while furloughing thousands of employees during the pandemic.
Around the same time, Raemdonck also raised eyebrows for having his lavish Dallas mansion profiled in an 11-page Paper City editorial while the company was handing out pink slips to lower-level staff.
In 2023, Raemdonck stepped in it again after telling Fortune magazine he wanted the company to stop appealing to the middle-class masses and focus selling to “the biggest spenders and win over more shoppers from the jet-setting millionaire cohort.” This rich gay needs some PR training, stat!
Raemdonck recently left the company’s Dallas headquarters – and his opulent 1927 Italianate-style estate – to relocate with his family to New York City.
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