I too have been trapped in the McKellar-Hagans web of deceipt and mis-information.
I was employed in Australia to oversee the operation of a body care brand that had been acquired by the aforementioned and then rolled into a buy out of stila cosmetics from estee lauder funded by sun capital partners (USA equity).
Jane as CEO of Stila had signed off on sales targets over 6 months for the brand based on her "leads" from her "network". Little did we know that these were all empty leads, and I SOON found out that the inventory from which we were too achieve this either (a) didn't exist, (b) was obsolete, or (c) other componentry required to make the item was missing.
There was no operations plan, not even an outline of how indeed $2m sales was to be generated from $40K inventory with a COGS of 65% (discovered after working 16 hours per day 6 days per week for 2 months trying to uncover an intricate web of fluff). Once this position was ascertained a report was sent to Stila HQ whereby I was informed to speak to nobody within stila but Jane and Don.
Don, by the way, was not a stila employee but a "consultant" to Jane. Don visited Australia twice - once for an hour with arnaud, and the second time for several hours, feigning misunderstanding of the true nature of a business that he himself had brought and brokered!
Our "accountant" was a former accountant of Don's who had apparently been left in the cold before by him in his dealings and with our "book keeper" was paying money we received from Stila to run our brand to various other liabilities of Don and Jane's incurred before they had left the country. When this was questioned they both resigned, a third employee became uncooperative, and the MD, a personal friend of Jane's (at least at the time she thought she was) and on maternity leave made me visit her house and justify my existence whilst she breastfed her baby.
Needless to say, we were advised by Don, after not having heard from Jane for the 2 months prior, and having been "forbidden" any contact with any other stila corporate management, that our brand would cease trading and we wound up within the month.
AT no time did Ken Ude (now CEO of stila) contact us despite him being made aware of the situation, and at that time the CFO resigned over equal discontent.
All of this occurred within the space of 6 months (hard to believe even now) and the remaining (honest and working) 2 full time employees and 1 contracted employee were left to close the doors with 4 weeks notice regardless of commitments to cars financed through employee allowances etc.
AT no time did Jane come to Australia (to see us anyway) despite her being registered with ASIC as the resident director.
These people somehow manage to have their names associated with some big enterprises - Elizabeth Arden, OneTel, NineMSN, Optus, Pacific Liberty to mention a few, but if you start reading there are always "interrupted tenures" and "sudden departures". These big companies can write off these stints of misguidance, but in smaller companies the people that wear the fall out are exactly that, regular people. So these companies have all also failed to protect others from them.
Do not trust these people. Do not deal with these people. DO not even stop to talk...
Why?
Sydney
Australia
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