Story 231

The Charlotte market executive for Merrill Lynch shared the ‘2026 Forbes ‘Best in State Wealth Advisors’ celebrating his team on LinkedIn yesterday –

Several years ago, I was first hand witness to a peer female intern enduring weeks of ongoing sexual harassment by one of those ‘celebrated’. He literally referred to himself as the ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ and wore it like a badge of honor (like, all of his jacket linings monogrammed with it…and he made a point to show it to the two female interns)

Given I’m in a different industry and was just interning (and after I witnessed the way the company handled the multiple complaints of sexual harassment, no way was I staying at the company/industry)- I still to this day wish our roles had been reversed. I was assigned to a GREAT team with amazing team members and she was stuck with the loser who referred to himself as “Wolf of Wall Street”. She’d dreamt and worked so hard her entire life to be in the exact internship, which should have set her up to be successful in the industry – and in just 5 short weeks – He robbed her of her career, and the company backed him up. He is a predator. The solution was to remove her from the office we worked at to another office, so she lost out on the entire internship. His countless harassing remarks and behavior that summer was disgusting. And the worst part? Turns out she wasn’t the first and the company knew of others who had complained about his behavior.

So what is it that we’re ’celebrating’ or ‘recognizing’ or what’s so ‘invaluable’ about Mr. ‘Wolf of Wall Street’, here? Why does he continue to have a successful career while the company has documented reports of him sexually harassing a female intern???? Make it make sense. It’s disgusting.

Systemic change is beyond overdue. Enough is enough. Hey @Forbes & @Merrill – Celebrating unlawful sexual harassment should not be a badge of honor.

Oh! And worth mentioning… the then President of Merrill at the time was the infamous [REDACTED] now at Citi … he seems to have quite the track record in not only allowing, but allegedly participating in sexual harassment in his decades of being a global ‘Leader’. Yikes. Glad I changed industries but my support is with every single victim who has come forward.