Updated version on May 28 2020 but posted under a September 12, 2017 date so that it does not appear at the top of the blog.
It's because of the inflated and irrational attacks against Derek, his Foundation and vaping at large that I decided to start again producing rendez-vous in October 2017 with a focus on tobacco harm reduction (THR), to bring together testimonies of people from various backgrounds and parts of the world, collecting and celebrating their efforts to support a revolution in smoking cessation. See the list of the guests.
At that point, as Derek was asking people to submit projects the Foundation could support I reached out and attended a meeting of applicants in Bethesda in February 2018. That's where I met vaping advocates in person for the first time and was even more convinced they were wonderful and courageous people who deserved to be respected and listen to.
After some back and forth about what I could contribute, I was hired by the Foundation on June 18, 2018 (I preferred the employee status to being a contractor because I did not feel at ease with the paper work involved with consulting) to be in charge of developing an on line community that would support vapers the way Globalink, the first tobacco control electronic network, had supported international tobacco control advocacy. This was a telecommuting job as I live on Bainbridge Island in front of Seattle and the main office of the Foundation is in New York.
I very quickly realized that I was facing several problems I had not really anticipated: the people I was supposed to work with had zero advocacy experience or concern. The technical work of building the on line community had been outsourced to a big advertising agency (Ogilvy) whose team was 'nice' but without any advocacy experience; the same lack of experience plagued the Foundation's staff in charge of "communications". It still does., although as of my writing this update, 2 of the previous staff have left). I tried to discuss this directly with Derek and while he seemed to agree with my assessment, my going to him without respecting the "hierarchy" made me very unpopular with the people supposed to be my managers who definitely wanted to control/prevent any direct access to him.
In August 2018, I proposed to Derek a different communications project that would support advocacy and educating the public that he encouraged me and Aaron Biebert to develop.
Meanwhile the online community project remained in my opinion abysmal despite the sizable budget awarded to the ad agency, numerous totally useless meetings (except for the billing?) while my 'managers' kept thinking the advertising agency work was great and ready to go (without them having spent any significant time trying to use it). As of today I have not seen any sign that this on line community that was supposedly ready to go has been launched.
When I once more emailed Derek directly with suggestions and comments, as he himself had encouraged us to do during a public 'townhall' meeting, I was immediately once more strongly rebuffed by said "managers", especially Ehsan Latif, who required that I stop such practice and immediately share the content of those emails. I refused, telling him it was up to Derek to share the emails I sent him.
I just did not fit within this corporate like strictly hierarchical culture that quickly turned abusive.
When I asked what was the budget Ogilvy had submitted for such an inadequate work as well as what was exactly the brief that had been given by the Foundation, I received no answer and was told it was none of my concern (for a project I was supposedly in charge of).
A very belligerent and aggressive in person meeting with Ehsan Latif and Charles Gardner took place in November in London just before my attending the 2018 e-cigs summit, without any previous warning that it would happen. It led me to file a complaint for harassment and bullying about Latif's behavior. I knew it would very probably not be taken into consideration in the US, as the US law offer very little protection except for specific discrimination, especially in a structure without a union to defend the employees rights as I should have remembered from my years as a union organizer.
My hope to be protected from such behavior and moved out of their reach was denied: I was told by the most recently hired talent manager they Ehsan had rightfully used his managerial prerogative: I could choose to stay under the thumb (even from very far away) of the very same person I considered a bully (as well as being completely incompetent as far as organizing an on line community) or resign.
I consequently 'chose' to resign, on January 2nd 2019 and did not receive any severance compensation. A very different treatment from Mica Wilson, VP Communications who was very probably in charge of the contract with Ogilvy, who also left the Foundation in January 2019 but received a whole year salary: $270.769 (according to the 2019 990 Form).
I do still hope some of the millions will support some good projects.
My resignation did not erase my serious concern that those millions of dollars be used to help smokers switch to less harmful products and that the proclaimed transparency about their use be implemented.
As for now it is not, as is so often the case when NGOs 'manage' significant amounts of money without any serious accountability.
As I did when I suggested in 2012 a transparency scorecard for the Gates Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies, I'll keep pushing for transparency and accountability about the use of those funds.
The ostracism fatwa ordered by the World Health Organization and others against the FSFW, played and still plays a part in making recruiting competent staff, Board members and any partners difficult. It's a shame considering such an unthinkable project should/could have been embraced by all the tobacco control advocates who care about all the smokers who have not succeeded to quit with the traditional methods. This was expressed eloquently by Annie Kleykamp in her piece Older smokers are the forgotten victims of our vaping wars, in Filter Magazine on October 9, 2019. There are still 10 years left to make it fully work.
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