‘Horrible Bosses’: I Was Careless, Unreasonable – Bento CEO Admits As Board Asks Him To Step Aside

Ebun Okubanjo, the CEO of Bento Africa, one of the tech founders accused of being toxic in the recent ‘Horrible Bosses’ scandal, has apologized to former and current employees of the firm.

Founded in 2019, Bento is a Nigerian digital payroll and human resource management platform with presence in some African countries.

Okubanjo, in a solemn apology letter issued on Wednesday, admitted to being careless about the impact of work on people.

According to him, “in the process of building Bento, we got careless about the impact of work on people. As the leader, I am principally the most guilty and solely to blame. Every year on Jan 1st, I send the team a link to the Tai Solarin essay `May your road be rough’ and I have led with careless abandon, believing that the big fish is not caught in shallow waters and that we needed to wade far offshore. We were stuck on the gears of Grow and Move. We forgot about the other gears Care and Nurture.”

While promising to seek professional help and turn a new leaf, the Bento CEO announced that he will step away from all people decisions in the company.

“To everyone who has been on the receiving end of my outburst, either written or verbally — I am sorry. I have some work to do here and there is a lot of room for growth.

“I did encourage a culture of long work days and weeks. Those late emails that came in odd hours were because I myself had no balance in my life — only work. I guess it is easy to expect the unreasonable from others when you are not being reasonable with yourself,” he said.

“To everyone who I have ever made to feel less than, who have felt that fire that burn so hot when we are in the thick of it, I am so sorry for the emotional and mental stress I caused you. Please reach out to me and let me know how I can personally fix it,” Okubanjo added.

Meanwhile, the company’s board of directors has opened an investigation into the workplace culture of Bento Africa, under Okubanjo.

A statement jointly signed by Obinna Ukachukwu, Manpreet Mann and Adedayo Amzat on behalf of the board of Bento, said it was reviewing the HR and people practices and guidelines at Bento while working with HR consultants to make the company reflective of ‘human values that drive sustainable performance.’

THE WHISTLER had earlier reported the outrage that trailed the ‘Horrible Bosses’ trend after a Twitter Spaces hosted by Kiki Mordi exposed the toxic work environment in a number of Nigerian Tech startups