Amit Paley, the embattled CEO of The Trevor Undertaking, was removed from the helm of the LGBTQ suicide prevention group this month by the group’s board of administrators following widespread employees backlash towards his management, the group confirmed.
Paley’s exit, first reported by Teen Vogue, comes a couple of months after HuffPost revealed that Paley had labored with Purdue Pharma, the infamous OxyContin maker, whereas he was employed by the worldwide consulting agency McKinsey & Firm.
Across the time of HuffPost’s revelations, Trevor Undertaking employees had been criticizing Paley’s imaginative and prescient for the group, saying his concentrate on progress was compromising the standard of counseling that the group presents to LGBTQ youth in disaster.
“Many members of our employees have raised issues about office well-being, skilled growth, prioritization efficiency metrics, and resourcing compensation — significantly as they affect our BIPOC, transgender, nonbinary, and disabled staff members,” The Trevor Undertaking mentioned in a press release to HuffPost. “Whereas a complete, unbiased assessment of The Trevor Undertaking is being carried out, the Board of Administrators elected to make a change in management.”
On the time of Paley’s work with Purdue Pharma — 2016 and 2017 — the opioid epidemic was claiming tens of hundreds of lives yearly, and Purdue Pharma’s status was in free fall. HuffPost found that Paley was a part of a McKinsey staff that helped Purdue construct a 10-year strategic plan to spice up the gross sales of opioids and different Purdue merchandise.
Paley additionally helped McKinsey compete to deal with information evaluation for Purdue and compete for a separate undertaking that concerned resuscitating Purdue’s collapsing public status.
In 2017, Paley left McKinsey to guide The Trevor Undertaking. His function on McKinsey’s Purdue account remained a secret till this summer season, when McKinsey printed greater than a decade’s price of paperwork from its work with Purdue as a part of a $573 million settlement over McKinsey’s function within the opioid disaster.
“If I knew then what I do know now, I’d not have agreed to do any consulting for that firm, and I remorse that I did,” Paley mentioned in a press release to HuffPost this summer season. Gina Muñoz, the chair of the board, mentioned the board had “full confidence in Amit as CEO of The Trevor Undertaking and stands firmly behind him.”
However the particulars of Paley’s work for Purdue reportedly rocked The Trevor Undertaking employees. The group’s personal research has discovered a hyperlink between prescription drug abuse and a rise in suicide danger amongst LGBTQ youth. Teen Vogue reported that, within the wake of HuffPost’s story, many staffers believed Paley ought to resign.
Already, many staffers had been distressed by Paley’s imaginative and prescient for The Trevor Undertaking: a concentrate on quickly scaling up its LGBTQ counseling companies, which the staffers claimed was coming on the expense of high quality.
Within the lead as much as Paley’s exit, greater than 200 Trevor Undertaking staffers signed a letter complaining concerning the breakneck progress.
Paley didn’t reply to a request for remark. Co-founder Peggy Rajski will reportedly function interim CEO, with help from Muñoz. Paley and a spokesperson for The Trevor Undertaking didn’t reply to a request for remark.