Kenneth Frazier, chief executive officer of the pharmaceutical giant Merck, made the announcement as Trump faces mounting criticism over his failure to directly criticize the white nationalists at the center of the weekend’s fatal protests in Charlottesville, Virginia. Following Frazier’s announcement, Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO – a union federation with 12 million members – said it was also assessing its involvement with Trump’s business panel. Frazier is the fourth business leader to quit Trump’s business panel. But the business panel was dogged by controversy from the outset, with staff and customers of many of the companies represented protesting that the involvement of their bosses appeared to endorse policies that their companies’ opposed. Remaining members include Mary Barra, chief executive of General Motors; Jamie Dimon, chairman of JP Morgan; Indra Nooyi, chair and chief executive of Pepsi; Ginni Rometty, chief executive of IBM; and Steven Schwarzman, chief executive of Blackstone.

Source: The Guardian August 14, 2017 13:33 UTC