Under Armour Inc. employees received an email earlier this year that upended a longstanding company practice: They could no longer charge visits to strip clubs on their corporate cards.
Over the years, executives and employees of the sports-apparel company, including Chairman and Chief Executive Kevin Plank, went with athletes or co-workers to strip clubs after some corporate and sporting events, and the company often paid for the visits of many attendees, people familiar with the matter said.
Strip-club visits were symptomatic of practices women at Under Armour UAA, +1.22% found demeaning, according to more than a dozen current and former employees and executives. Some top male executives violated company policy by behaving inappropriately with female subordinates, some of these people said. Women were invited to an annual company event based on their attractiveness to appeal to male guests, people familiar with the matter said.
In response to questions from The Wall Street Journal about the incidents and the company’s culture, Plank said in a statement: “Our teammates deserve to work in a respectful and empowering environment. We believe that there is systemic inequality in the global workplace and we will embrace this moment to accelerate the ongoing meaningful cultural transformation that is already under way at Under Armour. We can and will do better.”
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.
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