Barbara Judge intends to contest 41 allegations at IOD, while her board role with Dementia UK is also reviewed • Barbara Judge: the best-connected woman in Britain

The future of the chair of one of Britain’s most influential business groups was hanging in the balance on Thursday night amid allegations that she made bullying and racist comments about staff.

Members of the council of the Institute of Directors were locked in a meeting to consider claims made against the business lobby group’s chair, Barbara Judge, 71, who is facing 41 allegations, which also include sexism claims.

The meeting, chaired by Dame Joan Stringer, the IoD’s senior independent council member, began at 2pm and continued into the evening.

Lady Judge told the Times on Wednesday night that she had “voluntarily decided to step aside temporarily from my role as chair and contest these allegations and the flawed process conducted so far”. She said the investigation had not given her the opportunity to respond to the claims.

The investigation, which had been commissioned by Stringer, is understood to have begun three months ago.

Judge, who has one of the longest CVs in the City, also sits on the board of the charity Dementia UK. The charity said it was made aware of the allegations against her, on Thursday morning, and that while the claims did not relate to her role at Dementia UK, the charity was “naturally concerned about the allegations” and was “carrying out an urgent review of the situation”.

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The IoD said a full investigation had been commissioned after its human resources department was “made aware of a number of allegations from staff members concerning the conduct of non-executive members of our board”.

The inquiry was conducted by the law firm Hill Dickinson. The detailed report and its findings were being discussed at the IoD council meeting.

The report, according to the Times, found that Judge made racist statements about staff, such as “blacks can get aggressive”. She is also alleged to have bullied her assistant and reduced her to tears on several occasions.

She also allegedly told the IoD’s director general, according to the Times, that “the problem is we have one black and we have one pregnant woman [on the IoD’s secretariat] and that is the worst combination we could possibly have”.

In October 2016 Judge claimed long maternity breaks were bad for women, and suggested those taking a year off were at risk of losing their jobs. She told the Wealth Management Association’s forum Women in Wealth: “My mother used to say, when a baby is born it needs to be fed, bathed and diapered. An 18-year-old girl can do that. Your job is to get the money to pay the 18-year-old girl. When you have to be there is when the child gets smarter than the nanny.”

She told the forum: “I know it’s counter-cultural but I think long maternity breaks are bad for women. A friend of mine worked at Reckitt Benckiser and wanted to take a year off to look after her adopted baby. I told her ‘you’re mad, you have a great job and, trust me, you’ll lose it if you take a year off’. She took 12 months’ maternity leave, she returned to work – and then three months later the financial crisis hit. The first job they cut was hers. Why? Because her boss had been doing her job for a year. They realised they didn’t need her.”

A New York-born former banker and corporate lawyer, Judge became the IoD’s first female chair in 2015. She chaired the UK’s Pension Protection Fund between 2010 and 2016, and is also a former chair of the UK Atomic Energy Authority. She was awarded a CBE in 2010.

She told the Financial Times in 2014 that her greatest disappointment was not having a daughter, saying “that’s why I’m so committed to helping other women”.

The IoD, founded in 1903 on Pall Mall, London, promotes good corporate governance practices and recently called for tougher rules on executive pay.

