The head of the Mid-Atlantic Make-a-Wish Foundation branch was fired Monday for what the national organization called “unacceptable workplace conduct,” The Washington Post and the radio station WTOP report.
Chief executive officer Catherine Martens’s ouster came three days after all but one of the local chapter’s 20 board members resigned. The branch, in Bethesda, Md., serves Maryland, Delaware, Northern Virginia, and Washington.
The interim CEO, Susan Sewell, and Paul Allvin, a spokesman for the charity’s national organization, said the move followed an independent investigation prompted by staff members’ complaints about Ms. Martens’s management style and was not related to the charity’s finances or mission. Ms. Martens, who declined to comment on the situation, remains the chair of Community 1st, a group of Washington-area charities that broke away from the local United Way last year.
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