Zoom fires its president 'without cause' days after 1,300 job cuts

Greg Tomb had joined Zoom in San Francisco Bay Area in June last year. (Greg Tomb/LinkedIn)

The president of Zoom was fired days after the video conferencing platform laid off around 1,300 employees. Greg Tomb was abruptly terminated "without cause", according to the company in a regulatory filing, the BBC reported.

Zoom’s mass layoffs had affected about 15 per cent of its workforce. The company also trimmed the base pay for its executive leadership as pandemic-fuelled demand for the company's video conferencing services slows.

Greg Tomb had joined the company in San Francisco Bay Area in June last year after stints with several companies, including Google and SAP. Before joining Zoom, he was a board member at storage technology developer Pure Storage. Prior to that, he was the vice president of sales at Google Workspace for a little over a year.

In a company-wide email, Zoom CEO Eric Yuan said he was accountable for the mistakes that led to the layoffs and would reduce his salary by 98 per cent for the coming fiscal year, as well as forego his corporate bonus.

While people and businesses continue to rely on Zoom "as the world transitions to life post-pandemic," the Silicon Valley-based firm is seeing customers cut back on spending, Yuan said in a blog post.

"Our trajectory was forever changed during the pandemic when the world faced one of its toughest challenges, and I am proud of the way we mobilized as a company to keep people connected," Yuan said.

Zoom tripled its ranks of employees during the pandemic, as people used the platform for remote work, court hearings, social events and more while Covid-19 risks barred them from getting together in person, according to Yuan.

"We are seeing that people and businesses continue to rely on Zoom," Yuan said.

Zoom joined a growing list of US tech firms slashing jobs as years of high spending has given way to parsimony due to harsh economic conditions around the world.