Nadine Ahn says she had a chance to become the first woman to run Royal Bank of Canada before she was fired over a personal relationship with a colleague.

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RBC's fired CFO says she was in the running for CEO before bank sacked her over relationship Back to video

Ahn “was identified by RBC as a possible successor for the CEO position,” according to a lawsuit she filed against the lender.

She was promoted to chief financial officer in 2021 and “maintained a spotless employment record,” the lawsuit states. “Over 25 years of employment with RBC, Ms. Ahn proved herself as a loyal, trustworthy, and an extraordinarily talented leader, who overcame many gender-based hurdles during her employment.”

Ahn, 53, was sacked on April 5 by Canada’s largest bank, which said she’d violated its code of conduct with an “undisclosed close personal relationship with another employee which led to preferential treatment of the employee including promotion and compensation increases.”

That other person was Ken Mason, the bank’s vice-president of capital and term funding. He was fired the same day.

The two have filed separate legal actions for wrongful dismissal and are each asking for tens of millions of dollars in pay and damages. They both say the RBC press release that announced Ahn’s departure falsely insinuated that they were having an affair and that Ahn had advanced Mason’s career as a result.

“This discriminatory and unbalanced misstep by RBC ended the career of a woman who was a candidate to be RBC’s first female Chief Executive Officer and caused colossal professional damage and personal and family embarrassment and privacy damage for RBC’s loyal long-term employee, Ken,” according to a statement of claim filed by Mason.

Both Ahn and Mason are married with children, according to their lawsuits.

“These claims are without merit, and we will vigorously defend against them in court,” Gillian McArdle, a spokeswoman for Royal Bank, said in a statement provided to Bloomberg News on both lawsuits. “We conducted a thorough review with an investigation by outside legal counsel and the facts are very clear that there was a significant breach of our Code of Conduct based on the irrefutable evidence collected during the investigation.”

Investigation process

The documents provide a rare public glimpse into the inner workings of Canada’s largest lender. Both former employees described in court documents how they were summoned to separate meetings on the morning of April 5, then hit by questions about their relationship.

Ahn’s court filing says chief executive Dave McKay sent her a text message on the evening of April 4, asking her to attend a meeting the next morning.

She tried, unsuccessfully, to find out what the meeting was about. When she showed up, McKay was absent. Instead, she was met by an external lawyer and a person from RBC’s employee relations group. Her laptop and mobile phones were seized; the meeting lasted about two hours “and took the form of an interrogation,” her claim states.

Mason, meanwhile, had been summoned to a meeting by chief risk officer Graeme Hepworth. When he arrived around 11 a.m. on April 5, Hepworth wasn’t there. Like Ahn, Mason said he was questioned for about two hours by external lawyers and a member of RBC’s employee relations group.

The RBC representative went in and out of the room during the meeting, according to Mason’s account, while the lawyers “proceeded to ambush Ken with outrageous, damaging, hurtful and spurious allegations based on an anonymous complaint alleging that he had an inappropriate personal relationship” with Ahn. He was told he would be suspended; hours later, he was fired, the lawsuit states.

Ahn and Mason say they had been friends for a long time, but nothing about their friendship violated the bank’s code of conduct. “A longstanding friendship and professional working relationship was mischaracterized by the anonymous accuser and by RBC,” Mason’s lawsuit says.

No woman has ever been CEO of one of Canada’s six largest banks. At RBC, just three of the nine most senior executives are women. All of the heads of the bank’s major business lines are men — a situation that will change on Sept. 1 when Erica Neilsen takes over as head of personal banking.

Ahn and Mason did not reply to requests for comment sent to their lawyers.

Ahn is suing for nearly US$50 million. As part of that, she’s asking the court to assess US$20 million in special and general damages due to “devastating, worldwide reputational harm.” Mason is suing for more than US$20 million.

—With assistance from Jacob Lorinc.

Bloomberg.com