Enterprise

Another Black Salesforce manager resigned, alleging a ‘culture of rampant microaggressions’

The company continues to face criticism over what employees claim is a failure to match external hype about equality with internal progress.

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The internal backlash against Salesforce's touted diversity and inclusion efforts continues.

Vivianne Castillo, a manager in Salesforce's design research and innovation unit, announced her departure earlier this month in an internal note that criticized the software giant's culture as one that is discriminatory against Black employees, according to a screenshot of the company chat that was viewed by Protocol. Her last day is Friday, per a Twitter post.

"I'm leaving because I no longer see a path forward at Salesforce," Castillo wrote. "I'm leaving because I can no longer subject myself to the level of self-neglect required to endure a culture of rampant microaggressions and gaslighting that lead to the lack of psychological & emotional safety that I feel and experience as a Black woman at Salesforce."

Castillo could not immediately be reached for comment. Salesforce did not respond to request for comment.

It's just the latest source of turmoil for a company that regularly promotes its equality initiatives, but has faced criticism over what employees claim is a failure to match the external hype with internal progress. And it's not the first time that criticism has come from Castillo: She previously expressed similar concerns in an internal chat group in 2019, per screenshots viewed by Protocol.

In the latest note, Castillo said she was initially attracted to Salesforce because of the value it placed on equality, but came to realize "what has been marketed externally is far from the reality of how that value plays out internally."

Update: This article was updated at 7:04 a.m. PT on Feb. 25 to correct the timeline of when Castillo shared the note internally.

Joe Williams

Joe Williams is a writer-at-large at Protocol. He previously covered enterprise software for Protocol, Bloomberg and Business Insider. Joe can be reached at JoeWilliams@Protocol.com. To share information confidentially, he can also be contacted on a non-work device via Signal (+1-309-265-6120) or JPW53189@protonmail.com.

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