Both the whistleblower and the senior executive who first sent the ‘joke’ have been suspended by Guy Carpenter

The whistleblower who released externally a sexist ‘joke’ from a senior Guy Carpenter boss described as “extremely rude and offensive” by the victim, has been suspended.

The email, seen by Insurance Times, was first sent internally by Guy Carpenter’s senior vice president of global marine and energy specialty James Conmy, who has also been suspended.

In the email sent to multiple colleagues on Tuesday offering out birthday doughnuts, Conmy singled out the female co-worker as enjoying a “glazed ring”.

She responded half an hour later reporting the incident to HR and expressing her disgust at the comment.

“This is absolutely totally unacceptable James,” she wrote. “There are limits to ‘jokes’ you can send at work copying in all colleagues – this is extremely rude and offensive.

“Please note that this will be forwarded to HR – HAPPY BIRTHDAY.”

The email was sent on the same day it was reported that two Tokio Marine Kiln (TMK) executives had been suspended – one for alleged groping of colleagues at a TMK party, and another for sending a series of unsolicited texts and emails to a junior employee reporting directly to him.

A spokesperson for Guy Carpenter said: “We take all incidents of harassment very seriously and will not tolerate any behaviour that breaches our code of conduct.

“Our first priority is our affected colleague and we are offering all the support and counselling we can. Those involved in sending and externally disseminating this email have been suspended from the firm pending further investigation.”