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Silicon valley organization CEO resigns
Jesse Gary reports.
SAN JOSE, Calif. - The CEO of Silicon Valley’s largest chamber of commerce on Thursday said he was sorry for the mistakes his organization made and thereby stepped down after a racist campaign ad appeared on his group's website that criticized a candidate for wanting to defund police.
The Silicon Valley Organization, formerly the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce, announced CEO Matt Mahood resigned his post and the agency was launching a "top-down" investigation.
In a statement, Mahood said that as an organization "We have made some mistakes, and as a CEO, I take full responsibility."
According to the Mercury News, the black-and-white image, which was part of an attack ad funded by the SVO political action committee against San Jose District 6 Council Candidate Jake Tonkel, featured a group of Black men rioting in a street, possibly in South Africa. On top of the photo, the ad read: “Do you really want to sign onto this?”
Tonkel is a progressive who is challenging San Jose Councilmember Dev Davis. The image appears to allege that Tonkel supports defunding the police, which his opponents claim could lead to riots in the streets, as noted by San Jose Spotlight.
A screenshot of the SVO’s website of the campaign ad before the image was removed.
The photo was taken down Tuesday.
In his statement, Mahood wrote: "That image and messaging DOES NOT represent who I am as a man, a father, a husband or community leader."
Mahood’s resignation comes a day after SVO's executive board said it was placing Mahood on administrative leave, hiring a third-party investigator to determine how and why the ad made its way onto the website and suspending all campaigning efforts, the Mercury News reported.
Matthew Mahood's fulll statement:
As President & CEO of the Silicon Valley Organization, the level of responsibility and accountability is extremely high.
I have spent the last 9 plus years working hard to make San Jose a better place to live, work, play, raise a family and to run a business. Over that time, myself and the organization have achieved many of our goals – working collaboratively. I love my work, the people I work with, the SVO, the board of directors and our community.
But also, along the way, we have made some mistakes, and as CEO, I take full responsibility for those mistakes and missteps.
I am very sorry for the completely unacceptable image that was put up on our website earlier this week.
That image and messaging DOES NOT represent who I am as a man, a father, a husband or community leader.
The people who know me and work with me on a regular basis know that.
And I also know that the image and messaging does NOT represent the values of our members or the SVO Board of Directors.Although the SVO internal investigation has not yet been conducted or concluded, I am confident that the results of the investigation will show a breakdown of internal process and control, and that I had no knowledge of the image’s posting on our website.
And in fact, as soon as I was made aware that the webpage existed, I had it taken down immediately.
The investigation will find that it was a horrible mistake made by someone on the SVO team – the team for whom I am ultimately responsible for.
However, the events of the last few days make it clear to me that it is best for the Silicon Valley Organization, for me and our community that I resign from my position as President & CEO so that we may begin the process of healing, working together and breaking down the barriers and divisiveness that exists in our country.