Founder Replaced As CEO For Being A "Brown Woman", Viral Video Sparks Debate
A viral video is making waves on social media. In the video, a female entrepreneur shares her experience of being replaced as the CEO of the company she founded. In the video, she mentioned this happened because she is a "brown woman." According to the video, the company's board feared that her identity, gender, and skin tone might hinder attracting investors.
The woman's statement has attracted the attention of many people on social media and users are openly coming in her support.
In the video the entrepreneur mentioned, "In July 2024, the board picked a white man to replace me as a CEO in a company that I had co-founded and run for 10 years. And I'm gonna tell you why it matters that it was a white man who replaced me."
"Your first large institutional investor will set the tone for what type of investors you can subsequently attract into the company. When you accept a significant check from a tier 2 or tier 3 investor," she added.
Check out the post here:
She added, "One day one of our investors casually asked me if the colour of my skin or my gender was standing in the way of us raising more money. Let's put a pin on that. Eventually, when a couple of the board members decided that this guy would replace me as CEO, one of the things that he was most worried about was the optics of a which man replacing a brown woman as CEO."
She expressed in the video saying, "When they went around trying to convince the rest of the board members that swap should happen apparently one of the women board member that we had was very uncomfortable with the idea of a white man replacing a brown woman as a CEO."
The entrepreneur said that multiple things unfolded and then the decision came that the "White guy" and she would run the company as co-CEOs.
She mentioned that not all board members got on the board with this idea. Because of this she got a call from one of the board member who just mentioned that they will not be able to give equal pay to both CEOs.
"Now they were bringing a new CEO for a certain salary, he had the audacity, in 2024, to call me up and tell me that as a brown woman I couldn't draw the same salary as white man. The board couldn't reach a decision, so they went with just having him as CEO," the entrepreneur added.
Social Media Reaction
People praised the honesty of the entrepreneur in the comment section. One user commented, "Never thought I would see such honesty on this platform-love it!"
Another user wrote, "Thank you for sharing your story. More women need to speak up about such things.
"It's all about the optics for them because deep down they have always believed that the white man makes the difference! Thank for sharing your story so beautifully," commented the third user.
Trending News