Exstartup exec files suit over gender equity
A former marketing executive at software startup Carta sued the company in San Francisco Superior Court on Tuesday, alleging gender discrimination, retaliation, wrongful termination and violation of the California Equal Pay Act.
Emily Kramer, the company’s former vice president of marketing, alleges in her suit that despite Carta’s stated “commitment to transparency and equality in equity,” the company undercompensated her as the only female member of its executive team and repeatedly passed her over for promotions.
During her time at Carta, whose software helps companies manage the issuance of stock options and other forms of sharebased compensation to employees, Kramer led the company’s efforts to shed light on the “equity gap” in tech.
The company put out two widely cited reports on the lopsided equity compensation for women and the small percentage of women in leadership in Silicon Valley.
Despite its stated goals, CEO Henry Ward admitted in a Medium post at the time that his company was part of the problem.
“Only 30% of our 400 employees are women. One member of our executive team is a woman. And zero of our seven board members are women,” Ward wrote in 2018.
In the lawsuit and a Medium post of her own, Kramer said the company never took meaningful action to address these issues.
“On a macro level, Carta did not honor this commitment to be part of the change, despite many opportunities to do so.” Kramer wrote.
“During my tenure, nearly 20 people cycled through the executive team, yet no additional women, nor any people of color were added to the team.” She was at Carta for just under two years, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Kramer wrote that a 2018 internal audit of company compensation found she was underpaid by $50,000 per year and that her original equity grant was a third of what was paid to employees with comparable positions, all men.
Carta spokeswoman Lauren O’Mahony declined in an email to comment on a “pending legal matter.”
In her lawsuit, Kramer alleges Ward retaliated against her when she asked to be promoted, and she continued to face discrimination even after putting on a 2019 event called Table Stakes in San Francisco focused on analyzing the gender equity gap.
Shortly after the event, Kramer said Ward ended a meeting by telling her she was in violation of the company’s unwritten “noasshole policy,” that no one wanted to work with her and that she had received passes because she was a woman.
Two days later, Kramer emailed Ward, saying she felt forced to resign.
“It was implied and/or stated that I was disingenuous, (unempathetic), and not kind at my core,” Kramer wrote to Ward in her resignation letter. “This is emotionally hurtful and will continue to be. The situation did not show empathy to me. It was not kind or fair.”
“I’m sorry to hear that Emily. But I understand,” Ward wrote back in a screenshot of the exchange Kramer posted. “I’m sorry it ended this way too. Hopefully we can both learn from it.”