Pinterest Accused of Gender Bias in Suit by Former No. 2 Executive
SAN FRANCISCO — In April, Françoise Brougher, the chief working officer of Pinterest and its high feminine government, abruptly left the corporate with little clarification.
In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, Ms. Brougher accused the $21 billion firm, which makes digital pinboards, of firing her after she complained about sexist therapy. In her go well with, which was filed in San Francisco Superior Court, Ms. Brougher mentioned she had been unnoticed of essential conferences, was given gendered suggestions, was paid lower than her male friends when she joined the corporate, and in the end was let go for talking up about it.
“Gender discrimination at the C-level suite may be a little more subtle, but it’s very insidious and real,” Ms. Brougher, 54, mentioned in an interview. “When men speak out, they get rewarded. When women speak out, they get fired.”
Pinterest was reviewing the lawsuit, an organization spokeswoman mentioned. “Our employees are incredibly important to us,” she mentioned, including that the corporate was dedicated to advancing its tradition so “all of our employees feel included and supported.” Pinterest is conducting an impartial evaluate relating to its tradition, insurance policies and practices, she added.
Ms. Brougher is one of probably the most distinguished feminine tech executives to file a gender discrimination go well with in opposition to her onetime employer for the reason that enterprise capitalist Ellen Pao sued her firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, in 2012. The new lawsuit suggests that bias against women in Silicon Valley has persisted, even after tech’s culture of sexual harassment of female executives and entrepreneurs became part of the #MeToo movement.
Ms. Brougher’s lawsuit follows a gender discrimination lawsuit last month against Carta, a financial technology start-up, by its former vice president for marketing, Emily Kramer. Ms. Kramer accused Carta of paying her less than her male peers and said the company retaliated against her for speaking up about gender equality and diversity.
A Carta spokeswoman said, “Gender inequality in the workplace is a real and systemic problem, particularly in Silicon Valley, however, the allegations in this case are unfounded.”
Ms. Brougher’s suit adds to the scrutiny of Pinterest, which has a large audience of female users. In recent months, the company, based in San Francisco, has also been criticized by some of its former Black employees over racial discrimination. In June, two of them, Ifeoma Ozoma and Aerica Shimizu Banks, tweeted about racist and sexist comments, pay inequities and retaliation they experienced at the company. They quit in May.
Ms. Brougher is well known in Silicon Valley. She previously led the business side of the financial technology company Square and worked in a variety of positions on Google’s advertising business. She joined Pinterest in 2018 as chief operating officer and was responsible for the company’s revenue, with roughly half of the 2,000 employees reporting to her.
Ms. Brougher said she was not invited on the “road show” to talk to investors for Pinterest’s initial public offering. She was also not invited to board meetings after the company went public, though members of her team were sometimes invited to those meetings without her knowledge, the lawsuit said. (She was not a member of the board.)
Ms. Brougher described a culture of “constant exclusion,” where decisions were frequently made in unofficial capacities, or “the meeting after the meeting.”
“When you are brought in as a No. 2, you are expected to advise the C.E.O.,” she said. “But when you are not in the meeting where the decisions are made and don’t have the context, it makes your job harder.”
Ms. Brougher said Pinterest’s chief financial officer, Todd Morgenfeld, asked her at one point, “What is your job anyway?” in front of peers, according to the lawsuit. Mr. Morgenfeld also offered Ms. Brougher formal feedback that she viewed as sexist, according to the lawsuit. When she confronted him about it on a video call, he raised his voice and hung up on her, the suit said.
Ben Silbermann, Pinterest’s chief executive, was dismissive of Ms. Brougher’s concerns about Mr. Morgenfeld, comparing it to a domestic dispute, according to the suit. Human resources treated the complaint as a legal matter, the suit said.
In April, soon after the heated conversation with Mr. Morgenfeld, Ms. Brougher was terminated, according to the suit.
“I was told I wasn’t collaborating enough,” she said. Pinterest asked her to announce that leaving was her decision and she declined, she said.
Ms. Brougher’s law firm, Rudy, Exelrod, Zieff & Lowe, also represented Ms. Pao.
