A friend is an extremely high achiever and has been promoted rapidly in a ~1000 person company based on their work and reputation alone. Recently, as they have had to begin participating in more and more high level functions with directors/executives, unwanted touching has occurred more than once. Despite every effort to physically move away from the situation and send clear signals it continues.

You can bet they are in a position where not only are they uncomfortable saying anything, they are also is absolutely looking to jump ship to a company where this does not occur. I can guarantee you that allowing these people to continue these actions without punishment will certainly hurt the long term success of these organizations.

Anyone with half a brain knows these actions are unacceptable, the problem is those with more than half a brain realized they were able to get away with it previously and chose to continue acting in a way that provides them a sense of power and satisfaction as up to this point they simply could. This is no longer the case and a lot of people who aren't all bad and simply thought they could get away with it will (and should) lose everything for this.