BrewDog co-founder James Watt has used a Sunday Times Magazine interview to get over his response to allegations of bullying and sexual impropriety.
James Watt (left) with BrewDog co-founder Martin Dickie
Interviewer Josh Glancy writes: “He claims he has been attacked, stalked, besmirched and blackmailed by a tiny group of former employees and acquaintances with a personal vendetta against him. He says there are criminal and civil proceedings under way against one alleged antagonist. He insists the BBC documentary was riven with wild inaccuracies and flimsy assertions. After a 12-month pummelling in the court of public opinion, the former fishing boat captain is ready to fight back. He knows his company — his life’s work — is on the line. And he thinks it’s time the world heard his side of the story.”
The long article goes through the full history of BrewDog’s foundation and growth. It also details his family life (he has two young daughters, but is divorced from their mother).
Glancy writes: “[Watt] admits some people were poorly treated in the quest for rapid growth. One employee, Janine Molineux, a financial accountant, reported that on her first day in 2017 she was told: ‘If you see James Watt walk down those stairs, don’t make eye contact with him.’ In January 2018 Molineux told Watt that her father had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. She was fired the following day, the company says due to performance issues and independent of anything to do with the CEO. Watt says this was an unfortunate accident of timing rather than anything malicious, but in an ‘ideal situation’ he might have inquired after her general welfare behind the scenes following the cancer revelation.”
“I fully accept that I’ve been too intense, too demanding as a manager,” Watt tells Glancy. “At times I miss the social cues that would enable me to kind of review that situation and then maybe don’t course correct. I can understand why people felt the way they did in regards to my leadership style.”
He says he doesn’t shout or smash things, as has been alleged, but, writes Glancy, it’s not difficult to imagine him bringing a harsh intensity to bear that could crush a young or new employee. This is a man, after all, who takes ice baths in the morning because they help him realise that “any other challenge today is going to be less intense than sitting in this thing for 90 seconds”.
• The full story can be read here (behind The Times’ paywall).
