The head of the company appears in an official video aimed at all victims of harassment and lack of diversity in the company.
Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft, has appeared publicly through an official video shortly before the Ubisoft Forward began to apologize for the scandal reported through different media for the cases of sexual harassment and lack of diversity accused in the business.
The four-minute video is aimed at the victims, the main employees affected by a situation where mainly female workers were affected by an undesirable situation that, now, the head of Ubisoft has been in charge of responding without buts in between.
Commitment to guarantee equality, diversity and safety
“During this summer, we learned that some Ubisoft employees did not follow the values of the company,” he begins by saying after introducing the event that was about to begin. It acknowledges that they were unable to protect the victims of those inappropriate behaviors. “I am truly sorry for all the victims who were injured,” he adds. “We are working on improving our systems and processes. We are also focused on increasing diversity and inclusion at all levels in the company, ”he says.
Ahead of #UbiForward, a message from our CEO Yves Guillemot: pic.twitter.com/NDfOj4tFk7
– Ubisoft (@Ubisoft) September 10, 2020
For example, they will invest more than a million dollars during the next five years in their recruiting department to be able to train and incorporate personnel from minority groups. They want “everyone at Ubisoft to be welcome, respected and safe.” Specifically, his words have been repeatedly linked to “women” and “people of color”, who were mainly part of the cases uncovered this summer in relation to sexual harassment and abuse.
During the video no specific names have emerged, nor has there been mention of publicly known cases. One of the most notorious is that of Ashraf Ismail, creative director of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, who left the company after learning that he had incurred abuse of power and workplace harassment against certain women in the company in lower positions.
Yves Guillemot, who already said in July that “the change” began then, is committed to continue working “with dedication” so that “these types of circumstances do not happen again.”
