Prudential Chairman Shriti Vadera Under Investigation After Second Bullying Allegation

Prudential chairman Shriti Vadera is being investigated following a second complaint of bullying, the Mail has learned.

This comes after the former Labour leader faced a similar allegation in 2021, which was investigated by an independent QC, Aileen McColgan.

Vadera was acquitted, but in 2022 another complaint was filed, which had not been reported until now.

Ms McColgan has also investigated this, but the Mail has not yet been able to obtain the outcome of the second investigation.

According to a source close to the company, Vadera indicated she could have handled some aspects of the situation differently.

Prudential’s board of directors was “very positive about the chairman and pleased with the outcome.”

De Pru said: ‘In 2022 a complaint was investigated in line with our standard policy for such matters.’

The allegations relate to a period two years ago during which major changes took place, including a management reorganisation and the relocation of most of the workforce to the Far East.

But the incident is likely to raise fresh questions about the governance of the company, which is listed in both London and Hong Kong.

Vadera is based in London, but Anil Wadhwani – CEO since early 2023 – runs the company from Hong Kong.

Ugandan-born Vadera moved with her family to India and then to England.

She studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford and became an investment banker.

She was a key adviser to Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown in Tony Blair’s government. In 2007 she was made a baroness, but she is still a member of the House of Commons.

As a minister in Brown’s Labour government, she focused on Britain’s response to the global financial crisis.

She reportedly had a cool relationship with civil servants, was said to have been known to reduce junior staff to tears and was said to have once ‘taken the piss’ out of Blair.

Since then, Vadera has held a number of other key positions, including stints on the boards of AstraZeneca and BHP.

She was once seen as a contender to succeed Mark Carney as governor of the Bank of England and became chair of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2021. She was chair of the bank Santander UK from 2015 to 2020, before moving to Prudential in 2021.

The company has undergone a transformation in recent years, with the UK business being spun off as the separately listed M&G in 2019 and the US business Jackson being spun off in 2021, shifting its focus to Asia.

And more broadly, the sector has been hit by investor concerns about China’s consumer society and the crisis facing China’s debt-ridden real estate sector.

Vadera admitted at the company’s annual meeting in May that Prudential’s share price performance had been “frustrating and disappointing,” with shares down nearly a fifth so far this year.

The claims against Vadera are just the latest example of the problems at the top of Prudential in recent years.

Chief Financial Officer James Turner resigned last year after a code of conduct investigation into a recent recruitment found he had “fallen short of standards”.