Pinterest is planning to announce a new board member Friday, according to people familiar with the matter, in a move to appease employees who are demanding change after claims of discrimination by management.
More than 160 of Pinterest’s 2,400 employees are planning a virtual walkout on the same day. Because they’re already working from home, instead of walking off the job, they just won’t sign in, borrowing a protest strategy from Facebook's employees.
“We want systemic change so that we can remain proud of where we work,” the employees wrote anonymously in a petition asking for transparency on pay and on promotion and retention of minority workers.
Earlier this week, former Chief Operating Officer Francoise Brougher said in a lawsuit that she was fired after speaking up about gender discrimination by the photo-sharing website’s male-run leadership team. Her complaint escalated criticism of the company’s management team, publicly and internally. Pinterest had already responded to the allegations of two employees on Pinterest’s policy team who alleged racial and gender discrimination. When those claims went public earlier this year, Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann called parts of the company’s culture “broken.”
