It does seem like the [venture capital] world is undergoing a massive movement where anybody who treats women inappropriately will have to face the consequences. Over the last few weeks, we have witnessed several high profile venture capitalists either step down or be forced to resign from positions of power after accusations of sexual harassment or misconduct. A few of them, Justin Caldbeck and Chris Sacca, even came clean about their actions.
Now, we have another similar case. Frank Artale – a managing partner at the Washington based venture capital firm Ignition Partners – resigned from his post after allegations of misconduct were made against him.
Artale joined Ignition in 2011. Before that, he spent nearly a decade as a general manager at Microsoft. He also was an executive at Citrix and XenSource, and founded a startup called Consera Software that was eventually acquired by HP.
In 2012, GigaOm named him a top cloud venture capitalist. In 2013, Artale received a mention in the Forbes Midas “Hot Prospects” list and AlwaysOn’s “Power Players in the Cloud” list.
Here is a statement from the firm regarding the issue:
On July 5th, we learned of a complaint of misconduct by one of our managing partners, Frank Artale, from a third party who has requested anonymity.
Last Sunday, July 9th, we asked for Mr. Artale’s resignation from Ignition Partners. He agreed and resigned, effective immediately.
We took this serious and near-immediate step, in part, due to this complaint, combined with a third-party accusation of inappropriate conduct by Mr. Artale in 2016. At that time, we engaged outside counsel and conducted an exhaustive investigation into the event. While the investigation did not substantiate the allegations, it did indicate that he demonstrated poor judgment, which we addressed with him. Following that report, we retained an expert consultant to conduct sensitivity and anti-harassment training.
We deeply regret any adverse effects to any of the individuals involved in these events.
Megha Shah for TechFunnel.com
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