Rountree was a respected national figure in music, distinguishing himself at the Los Angeles Philharmonic and with his own new music ensemble, considered one of the city’s most innovative.
During the first leadership committee meeting, Acon and Gedeon said, Darrah shared his vision for a project that featured all-white collaborators. When they raised their objections, they said Darrah“That was his thing,” Acon said, to, “just shut down in a way where it was actually a source of power.” Acon said that Rivera eventually ended that particular meeting early.
Gedeon said he again suggested to Rivera that the company stop touting its shared leadership model in email blasts featuring Acon and Gedeon’s faces. Gedeon said that when the weekly leadership committee meeting got canceled three weeks in a row, he fired off an email to the group. Yuki Izumihara, a former contractor at LBO who worked in design, said it was obvious that Acon was being left out of important email communications and also left off company Slack channels. Izumihara cited an email exchange with Rivera in which Rivera CC’ed Darrah. Izumihara responded by CC’ing Acon, adding, “Let me add Derrell in this conversation. He shares leadership responsibilities with you too.
Izumihara said LBO leadership failed to create an inclusive company culture from the top down and described a “difference in temperature when it comes to equity conversations” between Rivera and Darrah on one side and staffers of color on the other.