“I sincerely apologize to all Whole Foods Market stakeholders for my error in judgment in anonymously participating on online financial message boards. I am very sorry and I ask our stakeholders to please forgive me.”
John Mackey, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Whole Foods Market, quoted in a July 17 “Apology Statement” on the company website.
Note: From the ‘when you’re in a hole, stop digging!’ school of crisis PR … John Mackey bites the bullet, sort of admits he was wrong (not fully, because of obvious potential culpability issues with the SEC) and apologizes.
And, what about his blog? A “Temporary Hold on My Blog” notice now appears at www.wholefoods.com/blogs/jm, reading:
A Special Committee of our Board of Directors’ is conducting an independent internal investigation into online financial message board postings related to Whole Foods Market and Wild Oats Markets. In light of this, it is in the best interest of the company to temporarily hold off on posting on my Company blog. The ability to post comments to this blog will be disabled during this time as well. I look forward to resuming our conversations and plan on being in touch with you again soon.
Best regards,
John
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