Women and people of color have left Mailchimp in droves in recent months.
Those who spoke to Insider said Mailchimp has for years let toxic leaders thrive while failing to address inequalities.
More than 30 current and former employees told Insider why they think Mailchimp is driving away diverse talent.
On November 12, Mailchimp CEO Ben Chestnut sent a Slack message to his employees saying he wanted to acknowledge the elephant in the room. We ve had more people than usual leave the company lately, including some great leaders, he said in the message, which was viewed by Insider.
Those departures included many of Mailchimp s highest-ranking women and people of color. Since the start of 2020, Mailchimp has lost two female C-level executives, one female Chief Information Security Officer, one female vice president, and at least eight women or people of color at the director or senior director level.
Mailchimp employees have complained about inequality for years is anyone listening?
Behind the claims of sexism and racism at Atlanta’s premier tech startup
Alejandra Luaces had only worked at Mailchimp for four months when she got a surprising anonymous email. “Oliver is in an open marriage and is fair game,” the message read, referring to a senior engineering manager. “Serena also knows so you can ask her to confirm.”
Luaces was not interested in Oliver. She certainly wasn’t interested in asking a female employee about his marriage. As a product operations manager and one of the few Latinx women in the engineering org Luaces was determined to succeed at one of the most prestigious tech companies in Atlanta, according to sources close to the situation.
Mailchimp CEO Ben Chestnut said the company has work to do on pay equity.
The emails came in response to claims of sexism and bullying by Kelly Ellis, who quit Wednesday.
Mailchimp CEO Ben Chestnut responded on Friday to allegations of gender discrimination and harassment at the company, telling employees in an email that we have work to do on pay equity and inclusion.
Chestnut s email, which was seen by Insider, appeared to contradict internal messaging the company had sent just a day earlier.
Mailchimp chief people and culture officer Robin White told employees in an email Thursday the company has made its hiring, promotion, and pay processes more equitable over the years.
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