Dear AIG executives,
What on earth are you thinking?
It’s bad enough that you mismanaged your business to the point of needing more than $100 billion in taxpayer-funded bailout money.
It was disgraceful shortly afterwards when you treated yourselves to a “retreat” in a luxury resort.
It is an absolute insult that you now are paying yourselves $165 million in bonuses, and some of the money has gone to folks who no longer work for the company.
You have a monumental PR problem on your hands unlike any I’ve ever seen before—and it’s all of your own making.
You probably have started losing customers over this. Certainly, new customer acquisition has come to a grinding halt.
So here’s a little advice.
Pay the bonus money back to the government and apologize. Profusely.
Adopt a company culture and an external message that says: we no longer will do business based on the greed model. Then act on it. Laser focus on this new mission.
This will take courage. This will take leadership. This will take getting back to the roots of your business: insurance. But it’s the only hope you have.
–Mara Conklin