Suns Employee Leaves Team Citing Toxic, Misogynistic Culture, per Report

The female employee claims the organization “does not place the same value on developing women in its workforce.”

A longtime Phoenix Suns employee reportedly sent a resignation email to more than a dozen in the team’s ownership group, detailing claims of bullying and vengeance from leadership after sharing concerns about gender equity and misconduct in the franchise, according to ESPN’s Baxter Holmes.

Melissa Fender Panagiotakopoulos, who had been working for Phoenix since August 2007, sent the email to 16 members who were “key stakeholders” that included former Suns majority owner and WNBA’s Mercury owner Robert Sarver, asking the organization to fix what she labeled as an unsafe and misogynistic workplace culture.

Panagiotakopoulos shared a list of allegations in her resignation that explain the “culture” and “character” of the leadership, according to documents obtained by ESPN. Panagiotakopoulos felt the group of stakeholders could “influence positive change.” 

Beck: Robert Sarver and the NBA's Toughest Test Yet

Panagiotakopoulos’s resignation came amidst the NBA’s investigation into Sarver and the Suns’ workplace culture. The league’s search began in November after ESPN published a story detailing extensive accounts of alleged racism, misogyny and verbally abusive behavior by Sarver, who served in his role for 17 years. He denied most of the allegations in ESPN's initial story.

However, Panagiotakopoulos did not directly reference Sarver or the names of any individual employees within the team’s leadership, per ESPN. 

In her email, Panagiotakopoulos—who was recently the senior premium experience manager—claimed that there were “conflicts of interest with managers’ ability to receive commissions, cherry pick deals, revise suite lease terms to line their own pockets and operate in a different manner than the rest of the sales organization with no true consistent systems or oversight,” per ESPN.

She also cited claims of unfairness and gender bias within the franchise, questioning why “she had been the only mother” in the team’s sales organization “for the last 15 years” and the potential of “certain males were being paid more in equivalent roles” then the females.

When it came to the Suns human resources department, Panagiotakopoulos said the unit lacked pertinence and the inability to “exert influence over C-Suites – the lack of follow-up, ability to resolve conflict or true concern for employee well-being,” according to her email. According to ESPN, before she resigned, Panagiotakopoulos reached out to the department in a memo on Nov. 10, less than a week after ESPN’s initial story into Sarver’s allegations.

In the November memo, Panagiotakopoulos described herself as a “working mother” who wanted the same “flexibility” as her male counterparts of being paid at a “higher rate” and the access to “work from home.” However, she was denied those opportunity.

“Over many years, it has become clear to me that the Suns organization does not place the same value on developing women in its workforce, or even on ensuring they are treated equally as compared to their male counterparts,” she wrote in the memo.

While Phoenix was a projected favorite to earn another trip to this year’s NBA Finals, Panagiotakopoulos shared that the franchise was in a very “dysfunctional” place. 

Since Panagiotakopoulos's “confidential interaction with senior leadership” in November, she claims that she witnessed “consistent retaliation and bullying” by her direct leadership. As a result, her job became “more intolerable and toxic than ever.”

She did not comment in ESPN’s story, but the team offered a statement to the network, saying it is “committed to creating a safe, respectful and inclusive work environment free of discrimination and harassment.”