'Bored' RBS investment chairman Rory Cullinan resigns after daughter's Snapchat message goes public
Royal Bank of Scotland’s investment bank chairman Rory Cullinan leaves after a Snapchat message to his daughter appeared in Instagram
The chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland’s investment bank is leaving the company just weeks after a private Snapchat message to his daughter – that he was bored at work – became public on Instagram.
Rory Cullinan is leaving the bank after six years.
The Sun newspaper revealed that he used Snapchat to send images with captions to his daughter: “Not a fan of board meetings xx”; “Boring meeting xx”; and “Another friggin meeting”.
Snapchat messages are private and disappear after a short period of time. But his daughter – a student at Durham University – copied and later shared the messages on Instagram, as part of a father’s day message.
RBS did not give a reason for Cullinan’s departure but said it had reached agreement with him, that he will leave the company on April 30 2015.
CEO Ross McEwan said: "We would like to express our thanks to Rory for his very significant contribution to the rebuild of RBS over the past six years."
Cullinan said he was “pleased and proud to have played a significant part in restoring RBS to a safe and sound agenda".
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Enterprise social media fraught with risk
Social media can cause problems for enterprises through reputational damage. Although Cullinan’s light-hearted messages were private and had not been intended for anybody other than his daughter, the risks are clear.
According to the latest report from Proofpoint’s Nexgate social media division, the UK lags behind the US in social media security.
The top 10 FTSE 100 companies have a similar number of social media accounts as the top 10 Fortune 100 US companies – but UK brands have twice as many unauthorised accounts on Facebook and Twitter.
The largest UK brands have an average of 325 accounts, compared to an average of 340 accounts for the top US brands.
According to the report – which covers some of the largest UK media, finance, retail and pharmaceutical firms – 80% of Facebook accounts and 40% of Twitter accounts are unauthorised.
