Fisher Barred From Tiburon Events, Summit Head Apologizes
Fisher Barred From Tiburon Events as Conference Chief Apologizes
(Bloomberg) -- Billionaire Ken Fisher was barred from attending another Tiburon conference two days after he made vulgar comments at an event that shocked those in attendance.
“I was extremely disappointed by the comments that I heard in the way that I understood them,” Tiburon Strategic Advisors Managing Partner Charles “Chip” Roame said Thursday in a statement on the organization’s website.
The “comments lacked the dignity and respect that should be expected by any Tiburon CEO Summit speaker or attendee” and “I further barred the speaker from ever attending again,” Roame said.
At the event Tuesday, Fisher spoke about how he built his company, Fisher Investments, which manages $112 billion. He compared the process of gaining a client’s trust to “trying to get into a girl’s pants” and talked about genitalia.
Financial industry executives who attended the event said they were appalled by Fisher’s remarks. Fisher acknowledged having dropped acid in the past and made a reference to loyal employees being tattooed with his firm’s name -- which also struck some listeners as offensive.
But Fisher said he didn’t understand the reaction.
“I have given a lot of talks, a lot of times, in a lot of places and said stuff like this and never gotten that type of response,” Fisher, 68, said in an interview Wednesday with Bloomberg, adding he thought his comments were taken out of context. “Mostly the audience understands what I am saying.”
Roame said the comments add to the gender diversity problem in the wealth and management industry. In one study he cited, women accounted for 58% of employees in the financial services industry, but only 48% of first and mid-level management roles and 31% of senior and executive level management roles.
Several others in attendance said they were astounded by Fisher’s remarks.
“I was floored,” said Rachel Robasciotti, a founder of wealth management firm Robasciotti & Philipson. “For me and some of the women sitting nearby we were kind of in shock. We were like: ‘Wait, did that really just happen?’”
Alex Chalekian , the founder of Lake Avenue Financial, was so upset he posted a video on Twitter recounting what he heard, calling the remarks “absolutely horrifying.”
Roame commended Chalekian for publicly revealing the offensive behavior at the conference.
To contact the reporter on this story: Gwen Everett in New York at geverett10@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Mirabella at amirabella@bloomberg.net, Vincent Bielski
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.