Co-founder says she was replaced as CEO of her own firm because of her 'skin colour and gender'. Watch

The video has drawn wide attention on social media, with users expressing strong support for the entrepreneur.

A video shared by a woman entrepreneur has gone viral online after she alleged that she was removed as chief executive of the company she co-founded because of her race and gender.

In the clip, the entrepreneur claimed that the company’s board had replaced her with a white man, expressing that the decision reflected concerns over her identity and its perceived impact on investment prospects. “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,” she said in the video. “And I'm gonna tell you why it matters that it was a white man who replaced me.”

She went on to explain how the company’s early investors had shaped future funding opportunities. “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 said, before linking those choices to later challenges in securing capital.

According to her account, the issue of race and gender was directly raised during fundraising efforts. “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,” she said.

She claimed that when discussions began about replacing her, the board eventually chose a white male candidate, and one of his key concerns was how it would be perceived publicly. “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 white man replacing a brown woman as CEO,” she said.

The entrepreneur added that one of the women board members had expressed discomfort over the proposal. “When they went around trying to convince the rest of the board members that swap should happen, apparently one of the women board members that we had was very uncomfortable with the idea of a white man replacing a brown woman as a CEO,” she stated.

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After a series of internal discussions, she said, the board decided that both she and the new appointee would share the role as co-chief executives. However, not everyone supported the arrangement. “Not all board members got on board with this idea,” she said, adding that she later received a call from one of them about pay.

“Because of this, I got a call from one of the board members who just mentioned that they will not be able to give equal pay to both CEOs,” she recalled. “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 a white man. The board couldn’t reach a decision, so they went with just having him as CEO.”

The video has drawn wide attention on social media, with users expressing strong support for the entrepreneur and praising her for speaking openly about her experience. One commenter wrote, “Never thought I would see such honesty on this platform—love it!”

Another said, “Thank you for sharing your story. More women need to speak up about such things.” A third person remarked, “It’s all about the optics for them because deep down they have always believed that the white man makes the difference! Thank you for sharing your story so beautifully.”