Afiniti CEO steps down after assault allegations

November 19, 2021 (MLN): The Board of Directors of Afiniti announced that Mr. Zia Chishti has stepped down from his role as Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and Director of Afiniti, with immediate effect. The Board will make additional organizational announcements in the coming days, a report issued by Bloomberg noted today.

The move came two days after a 23-year-old former employee testified before a U.S. congressional committee investigating arbitration clauses that companies write into contracts, and the chilling effect they can have on victims of harassment and other crimes.

The news gave a significant jolt to the market price of the company as the scrip value has plunged by 20.85% (Rs27.25) within two days and currently trading at 103.25 per share. 

To recall, the share price of The Resource Group (TRG) had drastically declined on Wednesday by Rs9.78 or 7.59% after the said news appeared on media. On the same day, the Afiniti, TRG remained responsible for deducting more than 100  points from the KSE 100-index. 

The earlier reports said, the software house, Afiniti investigated Ms. Spottiswoode’s claims with independent counsel wherein it concluded that the arbitral decision she referred was incorrect while Zia Chishti strongly refuted all accusations against him.

Zia Chishti spent more than a decade building Afiniti, a company to revolutionize the way call centers operate. Along the way, he assembled a star-studded roster of advisers such as a retired U.S. admiral, A-List chief executives, and three former heads of government, including former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron.

He hired a high-powered sales force that featured a member of the royal family and a great-grandson of Winston Churchill. And he signed up blue-chip customers such as Caesars Entertainment and Enel SpA.

Chishti, a heli-skiing Pakistani–American who previously launched the Invisalign dental braces business that is now worth $47 billion, founded the company that would become Afiniti in 2006 as a call-center operator. Around 2017, it started to identify itself as an AI pioneer, saying its software could supercharge the efficiency of call centers by matching customers with agents most likely to solve their problem or make a sale, the report said.

Chishti’s pitch has attracted investors such as McKinsey & Co., Swiss asset manager GAM Holding AG, media scion Elisabeth Murdoch, and former BP Plc boss John Browne. In recent months, Chishti, a former Morgan Stanley banker, had insisted Afiniti deserved a valuation of at least $2 billion.

The report revealed that the advisory board of Afiniti was aware of the claims made by Spottiswoode in 2018.

David Cameron, a former  Prime Minister of UK who joined Afiniti in May 2019, quit his role on Wednesday. Three more advisers are considering exiting the firm. 

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