Cynthia Marshall named CEO of the Dallas Mavericks

AP | Cynthia Marshall (“Cynt”) has been named as the new CEO of the Dallas Mavericks

Marshall – a former AT&T executive was introduced to the public a week after a report that painted a picture of a hostile workplace for women.

In his first meeting with reporters almost a week after the Sports Illustrated story that also included allegations of sexual misconduct against former team president Terdema Ussery, Dallas Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban wouldn’t address how much he knew about those complaints.

Ussery was investigated by the Mavericks over similar allegations in 1998, 2 years before Cuban bought the team. Cuban has hired two former prosecutors to investigate the complaints and the franchise’s workplace practices.

Marshall was senior vice president of human resources at AT&T when she took on the additional role of chief diversity officer in 2015.

Sports Illustrated (SI) reported Ussery made sexually suggestive remarks to several women. He spent 18 years with the team before going to the sports apparel company Under Armour in 2015, a job he left after less than 6 months.

The SI report said team website reporter Earl Sneed was twice involved in domestic assault cases while working for the Mavericks, including a guilty plea in a case that was dismissed when he met the conditions of the agreement.

Sneed and former human resources director Buddy Pittman were fired in the wake of the report, which included allegations that executives weren’t responsive when women complained of workplace violations.

Marshall said all current employees would be interviewed, and that she intended to meet with former employees as well.
“The process failed somewhere,” said Marshall, who retired from AT&T last May with more than 30 years of telecommunications experience going back to 1981 with Pacific Bell. “I don’t know why it failed. And so that’s what we have to dig out. So I will be meeting one-on-one every single employee of the organization. I’m calling it my own ‘March Madness.'”

The SI report came a day before the NBA fined Cuban US$600,000 for acknowledging that losing games intentionally was the best approach for a team that will miss the playoffs with a losing record for the second straight year.

Cuban reached out to Marshall, who founded her own consulting firm, after the SI report last week. They met the same day he called, and she was in place by Friday.

“Leadership at AT&T suggested her name to us and basically conveyed to us that their most devastating day at AT&T was when Cynt left,” Cuban said, using Marshall’s preferred version of her first name. “That and confirmation from untold number of people was all the confirmation I needed to hear.”

Marshall said she found Cuban to be transparent and honest in their first meeting, which lasted nearly an hour. But she still told him she would have to think about it, based on what she had read in the SI report.

“I’m a brand,” she said. “I work very hard for the brand that I have. And I can’t attach my brand to something I can’t trust. By the time I left his office, spent a day with the folks, I said I absolutely will attach my brand to this organization.”

The team plans to establish a hotline for counseling and support services for past and current employees, and Cuban has said he is mandating sensitivity training for all employees, himself included. The NBA announced plans for a similar hotline a few days after the SI report.