Ban.do

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Ban.do is a lifestyle online retail services based in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Founded in 2008 by Jen Gotch, the company specializes in clothing, accessories, beauty products, skin care products, kitchen equipment, planners and notebooks.[1][2] Ban.do Penthouse, the creative headquarters is located in LA and in 2016 they opened its first UK office with hubs already in Kentucky, Hong Kong and Los Angeles.[3]

Controversy

On June 2020, former employee of Ban.do shared insight from her time working for the online brand. In a lengthy Instagram essay, Gabriella Sanchez, who says she worked at Ban.do from 2014 to 2016, accused Gotch of cultivating “an overall toxic culture,” detailing instances of overt racism from Gotch and style director Kelly Edmonson. One such instance, Sanchez said, occurred during her first week on the job, when the Ban.do group went for lunch. “We were sitting on the outside patio of the restaurant when a Black couple walked up and sat at the opposite end of the patio,” Sanchez wrote. “Jen was in the middle of telling a story when she saw the couple walk by she started talking in an ‘accent’—one very much like from those old racist movies with people in blackface. One of the girls asked her why she was talking like that and Jen made a joke of it and laughed and said it was her ‘plantation accent.'” Sanchez said that when she didn’t engage in the “joke” and shrank back from the group after lunch, Gotch singled her out in front of everyone, saying: “I don’t think Gabby likes us.” Sanchez wrote that the rest of her time at Ban.do was “plagued with racism and emotional manipulation.”[4]

The feud is getting bigger as employees wrote under their real names and anonymously to a new account, bando_anonymous, to share their claims on how racist and toxic the culture inside Ban.do.[5]

Not long after that, Gotch wrote a public apology in her now-deactivated Instagram account, as well as announcing that she will resign from her position as chief creative officer of Ban.do.[6] Simultaneously, Ban.do said it is taking steps to create change. For instance, it will commit to hiring Black and brown models and purchasing at least 15% of the third-party products sold on its e-commerce site from Black-owned businesses.[7]

Reference