Last week we highlighted news reports that Anuradha Mittal (pictured above), the radical anti-Semite who led the board of directors for Ben & Jerry’s under Unilever‘s ownership, was formally denounced by the company as unfit to lead.
This week the ice cream maker’s new owner announced that Mittal is out — along with two other directors. Reuters reports:
Ben & Jerry’s has ousted the chair of its independent board as part of new governance practices introduced by the Vermont-based ice cream brand on Monday that include nine-year term limits for board members.
Anuradha Mittal, who joined the Ben & Jerry’s board in 2007, serving as chair since 2018, said this month she had no plans to resign under pressure from the then Ben & Jerry’s owner Unilever, calling efforts to remove her an attempt by Unilever to “undermine the authority of the board itself”.
The Cherry Garcia ice cream maker is now owned by The Magnum Ice Cream Company , after a spinoff from Unilever last week that created the world’s largest standalone ice cream company, commanding around a fifth of the $87 billion global market.
Ben & Jerry’s, whose 2000 merger agreement with Unilever created an independent board and preserved the brand’s social mission and charitable work, said in a statement that any director who has served more than nine years on the board would not be eligible for annual re-election in 2026.
“Two directors were notified today that they will no longer be eligible to serve on the board going forward,” Ben & Jerry’s said. “In total, three directors have been notified of their ineligibility to serve on the Board.”
Ben & Jerry’s did not name the directors, but a person familiar with the matter confirmed that Mittal has left her role with immediate effect, while long-standing directors Daryn Dodson and Jennifer Henderson would see their terms expire on December 31.
NLPC in recent years exposed Mittal’s pro-Hamas views, and her conflict of interest via potential self-dealing with her nonprofit organization, which led NLPC to file a complaint with the IRS.
View NLPC’s investigative reports into Anuradha Mittal here and Ben & Jerry’s here.
