IAC fired a senior corporate communications exec on Dec. 21 after she posted a racially tinged Twitter remark about AIDS and Africa.
"Going to Africa," tweeted Justine Sacco, senior director of corporate comms. for the New York-based Internet company on Dec. 20. "Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!"
IAC quickly fired the PR staffer after the tweet sparked social media outrage and media attention. "The offensive content does not reflect the views and values of IAC," the company said in a statement. "We take this issue very seriously, and we have parted ways with the employee in question."
Sacco, a native of South Africa, had been at IAC for three years. In a statement released in South Africa and to ABC News, she apologized for the message. "Words cannot express how sorry I am, and how necessary it is for me to apologize to the people of South Africa," she said, noting the AIDS crisis on the continent. "Unfortunately, it is terribly easy to be cavalier about an epidemic that one has never witnessed firsthand."
She previously managed corporate communications at WWE and was an account staffer at The Morris + King Company and DKC.
Business leaders will face challenges in the upcoming year, some of which will come as a complete surprise, or beyond anyone's imagination.
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BCW has named Golin's Matt Coldagelli EVP and leader of its corporate affairs practice in Chicago.
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