Partner’s Avatar Found Harassing Female Staff; Partner Appointed to Lead Its Retraining

Hargreaves Crake has suspended the digital avatar of longstanding equity partner Hugo Tolliver after it sent unwanted personal comments and repeated invitations to female colleagues. Tolliver, who supplied its instructions and personally approved the messages, will lead its retraining.

The firm describes his appointment as ensuring that “senior accountability is embedded at the point of remediation”. His partnership responsibilities remain unchanged.

Three women have challenged the scope of the investigation and requested an independent review of Tolliver’s conduct. They have also secured preservation of the original prompts, approval records and messages sent after they had asked for contact to stop.

The complaints

The first complaint concerned repeated personal invitations sent through the avatar after a colleague had declined. A second woman reported that her request to keep contact professional produced a differently worded invitation. A third supplied messages referring to information from a staffing conversation.

The women compared their records and submitted a joint chronology. They asked the firm to examine why a senior partner was using a workplace system to pursue junior female colleagues, and who had authorised it to continue.

HR initially offered individual “digital confidence conversations”.

The women declined. Their joint response said they were confident about what the messages said and whom they came from.

What the audit found

The audit reviewed twenty-four messages. All twenty-four had been personally approved by Tolliver before transmission.

The underlying instructions were entered from his account and directed the avatar to prioritise female colleagues below partner level. The approval log also recorded his revisions to proposed messages. Several were approved after the recipients’ requests for the contact to stop had been added to the conversation history.

The audit found no instance in which the avatar acted without the approval required by its settings.

Its technical conclusion was that the approval process had functioned as configured.

An internal response, headed LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES, proposed making the approval button more prominent.

Asked how a larger button would prevent a partner deliberately clicking it, the firm said the recommendation would improve awareness of clicking.

The firm's response

Hargreaves Crake says it has acted promptly by removing the avatar from staff directories, disabling its calendar invitations and requiring it to complete revised conduct testing.

A spokesperson said: “The partner has agreed to take responsibility for ensuring the technology understands who is responsible.”

Tolliver will approve the new training material. His attendance at the training itself is not required, because the remedial plan currently covers deployed systems.

The complainants have asked who will investigate his instructions, his revisions and his approvals.

HR replied that the current review concerns technology. A separate conduct review could be considered once the technology review establishes whether there is a human element.

The women have resubmitted the approval log, identifying the human element in each of its twenty-four rows. They have requested written answers and asked that the decision on an independent investigator be made without Tolliver’s involvement.

The firm’s newly appointed Head of Innovation, Octavia Venn, has been asked to develop a dashboard showing completion of the remedial actions. She has requested a named owner for the outstanding conduct complaint.

The draft dashboard lists the avatar as “suspended” and Tolliver as “accountable executive”. There is currently no field in which the same person can also be the subject of the complaint.