A former sales executive is suing music streaming platform #Spotify for gender discrimination, equal pay violation and defamation. Hong Perez claims the CFO “does not care about diversity at the company” and that the company operates at a “double standard.”
Perez filed suit in New York Supreme Court and alleges that her boss, Brian Berner, planned “guy’s trips” to the Sundance Film Festival in 2016 and 2017 and that another Executive was given a promotion after sexual harassment allegations and frequently takes male staff to strip clubs in Atlantic City. She also claims that male employees receive better pay and benefit packages.
Perez was terminated from the company earlier this year for violation of the company’s Code of Conduct but she says Berner fired her for his own wrongdoing. According to The Guardian, Berner was reprimanded by Spotify for accepting free tickets to Madison Square Garden and that he received minimal disciplinary action by blaming her for the situation, hence her termination.
The allegations against Spotify come quite opposite of the image the company has imposed, especially recently. Over the summer, the platform launched a bootcamp to help women of color in the US break into the world of podcasting and last year, Spotify released a series called “I’m With The Banned”, which highlighted people who have been historically excluded including immigrants and members of the LGBTQ community.
Spotify published its first public diversity data report in July, which stated that 38.7% of employees identified as women and the number of female board members, senior executives and women in leadership roles is around 30%. The number of women in leadership roles has grown from 3.4% to 38.4% in the two-year reporting period.
