Wounded Warriors fires CEO and COO: report

March 10, 2016 in News by RBN Staff


The Hill
| Harper Neidig | March 10, 2016, 06:09 pm

The chief executive officer and chief operating officer of the Wounded Warrior Project were fired Thursday, according to a CBS News report.

CEO Steven Nardizzi and COO Al Giordano were voted out by the group’s board of directors following reports that Wounded Warrior had been spending too much on fundraising and lavish parties, and too little on actual charitable work.

The veterans’ charity, the largest in the country, has been facing questions about its spending habits. An earlier CBS report showed that the organization spends only 60 percent of its budget on helping veterans, while other charities devote upward of 90 percent of their budgets to such action.

According to the report, which was based on interviews with more than 40 former employees, the WWP spent $3 million on a four-day conference in Colorado for 500 of its staff members.

Despite Friday’s firings, the organization has adamantly denied that report.

“We demand that CBS immediately correct the record, issue a retraction of the false statements, and issue an apology to the public and the tens of thousands of wounded veterans and their families who have been offended by these false statements,” said WWP spokesperson Ayla Tezel in a statement back in January.