Billionaire Ken Fisher was barred from an exclusive conference after making sexually inappropriate comments
Billionaire investor Ken Fisher has been barred from attending future Tiburon CEO Summits, after he made sexual remarks at the exclusive conference earlier this week.
Speaking at a fireside chat at the Tiburon conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, Fisher made comments about genitalia, compared wooing clients to picking up women, referenced Jeffrey Epstein, and made other inappropriate comments, several attendees said on social media and in interviews with the Washington Post and Bloomberg.
In a statement, Fisher apologized for the remarks.
“Some of the words and phrases I used during a recent conference to make certain points were clearly wrong, and I shouldn’t have made them,” Fisher said. “I realize this kind of language has no place in our company or industry. I sincerely apologize.”
Fisher is a well-known investment adviser. He pitches his money management firm, Fisher Investments, in television advertisements across many different media platforms, including CNN.
On Thursday, the conference organizer addressed Fisher’s remarks, without mentioning him by name, in a lengthy statement on its website. Charles “Chip” Roame, Tiburon Strategic Advisors managing partner, said that he barred Fisher from the conference.
“The speaker who made these remarks will not ever be invited back to a Tiburon CEO Summit,” Roame said.
Tiburon has a confidentiality policy: No media is allowed, and attendees are asked not to quote speakers without their approval, the organization says on its website. But several attendees nevertheless relayed Fisher’s comments on social media.
In a video on his Twitter account, Alex Chalekian, founder and CEO of Lake Avenue Financial, condemned Fisher’s comments. He called the session “a true debacle.”
Chalekian said many attendees were disgusted by the comments, and that he was “truly disappointed in what occurred.”
Sonya Dreizler, CEO of Solutions with Sonya, concurred with Chalekian’s statement, tweeting that she chose to break the conference’s code of privacy, explaining that she found Fisher’s comments outrageous.
“I was extremely disappointed by the comments that I heard in the way that I understood them,” said Roame. “These comments lacked the dignity and respect that should be expected by any Tiburon CEO Summit speaker or attendee.”
Roame also commended Chalekian for going public with his views of Fisher’s comments, saying Chalekian “recognized that the issues of dignity, respect, and inclusion are more important than the Tiburon CEO Summit media policy, and he took action.”
— CNN Business’ Jordan Valinsky contributed to this report.
