Billionaire Richard White sued for $1.85m over alleged misleading conduct at Kyckr
A former tech chief has sued billionaire Richard White for $1.85m, claiming she was promised company shares and then unfairly dismissed after raising governance concerns.
Billionaire Richard White is being sued by a former employee of his private company Kyckr over allegations of misleading and deceptive conduct connected to equity grants and unfair dismissal claims.
Kyckr’s former chief technology officer Rebecca Glover has launched legal action against Mr White, the Wisetech Global founder, in the Federal Court, seeking payment for reputational damage, lost wages and foregone shareholding in the company.
Steve Lamb, Kyckr’s chief executive, is also named in court documents obtained by The Australian, as is Kyckr, the anti-money laundering software firm Mr White privatised in a $43.5m deal in 2022.
Ms Glover is seeking at least $1.85m, alleging she was underpaid compared to her peers in the industry, missed out on equity in Kyckr that was allegedly promised to her before joining the business, and non-economic loss including “reputational damage” due to her dismissal in June this year.
She had previously pursued unfair dismissal action via Fair Work Australia, but conciliation failed and Ms Glover has lodged a case in the Federal Court.
In court documents, she alleges she was promised about one per cent of Kyckr’s shares that she never received, was terminated from her position after making “inquiries concerning the need for Kyckr to meet its governance and compliance obligations” and that her annual remuneration was up to $120,000 less than industry standards for her CTO role.
Ms Glover also alleges mistreatment due to her refusal to produce “shiny” presentations about Kyckr’s performance when she had instead pressed for the company’s “technical debt” to be addressed. That, and other matters, led to her sacking, Ms Glover alleges.
“The subsequent reference in her dismissal letter to alleged ‘performance issues’ was, in truth, a reprisal for her refusal to compromise governance standards,” she claims.
Mr White’s position as sold director and owner of Kyckr, Ms Glover claims, and its “controlling mind”, meant the billionaire – currently the subject of a possible insider trading investigation regarding sale of Wisetech shares – had “ultimate responsibility for management decisions”.
He had been party to several decisions regarding Ms Glover’s employment, including her dismissal and the earlier removal of her IT administrator access after Ms Glover disputed a request In June by Mr Lamb to terminate previous Kyckr CEO Kathy Phelan’s access to the company’s systems.
Ms Phelan had recruited Ms Glover to Kyckr after their previous company Social Media Technologies was acquired by Mr White (a shareholder) for integration into Kyckr. Ms Glover says Ms Phelan had assured her she would participate in Kyckr’s executive equity scheme.
“She said in substance: ‘If you come in at this level you will be given full value equity in the company, around one per cent, alongside the other senior executives’” Ms Glover said in a concise statement of claims lodged with the court.
She also says her work led to about $1m in recruitment savings for Kyckr by finding staff from her networks and a University of Wollongong iAccelerate program, helped oversee “the turnaround from monthly losses of approximately $960,000 to profitability” for the company, and achieved all her objectives and key results.
A 2024-25 remuneration review recorded a 0.60 per cent equity allocation, she claims, having taken the $266,000 job (including superannuation) on “the assurance of equity participation” when an industry pay benchmarking report for senior technology executives at her level placed market remuneration at $320,000-380,000 plus equity.
In a separate wrongful dismissal case lodged earlier this year, Ms Glover reportedly alleged she was sacked for objecting to hiding issues with Kyckr systems, including a critical cybersecurity flaw, from a potential purchaser, Encompass Corporation.
After questioning a request to revoke Ms Phelan’s IT access on June 11, she later discovered her own administrator access had been removed. Nine days later she was sacked via a letter from Mr Lamb.
Ms Glover says she has suffered economic loss of $400,000, including lost salary and entitlements, and foregone equity participation conservatively valued at $1.2m.
Her non-economic loss “including reputational damage within the technology and compliance industry, distress, humiliation and anxiety occasioned by her dismissal” is conservatively valued at $250,000.
Neither Mr White nor Kyckr would comment when approached by The Australian.
Ms Glover was last Friday ordered by the court to lodge a full statement of claim by November 19.
