Charity closes after FT's expose on all-male dinner in London
The Presidents Club has made the decision to shut down, per Bloomberg's Joe Mayes, after the Financial Times posted a bombshell report yesterday about the London organization's annual Charity Dinner, a men-only event that raised money via auction for causes like the United Kingdom's preeminent children's hospital. But the FT detailed how the dinner's hostesses were encouraged to drink on the job and faced sexual harassment, groping, and propositioning from some of the U.K.'s wealthiest men — all for a night's wage of £150.
The prior fallout: The U.K.'s Charity Commission announced a probe into the dinner as the head of the trust behind the dinner stepped down from a role with the government's Department of Education. The Bank of England revoked its auction lot of a tea with its head, Mark Carney, while Great Ormond Street Hospital and the Evelina London Children’s Hospital said that they'd return all donations received from the dinner.