Whew. This PwC resignation email is 🔥🔥🔥🔥
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I just want to put this out there. I don’t know all the facts. But she’s not alone. I was on track for SM, saw the battle ahead and decided to leave. There was never outward racism, but definitely a feeling that you had to share the preferences/views/interests of the white men at the top to get by… and I simply didn’t. It became exhausting pushing against who I was, so I found myself a place that truly was diverse and valued my difference. I hope she finds somewhere that makes her feel valued too 🙏
As an immigrant that tried to work in corporate America, these reactions shock me.
The extreme individualism makes you heavily question her arguments, even though we know our society has racism (and sexism) embedded in it. By definition, EVERY black person (and woman) will have to fight an uphill battle.
Why don’t you put the burden of proof on the company, rather than the individual? Let the company prove it has always accounted for racial and gender issues, rather than bombarding the person who had the courage to speak up.
I left America because the illusion of allowing for everyone’s opinion is commonly used as an excuse for underdeveloped empathy skills.
Chief
Such a good point.
US leadership of 19, 3 of which are black. This is a better ratio than the 13% black population in the US. What am I missing here?
🤣rekt lol
Chief
Let me preface this with saying I have never worked at PwC.
That said, I see a long rant with zero evidence in there, along with a clear inability to do the math and see that black membership in the senior leadership ranks is slightly overrepresented compared to the black share of the US population (presuming this is about the US member firm).
What were the reasons given to this individual for being passed over for promotion three times? What is the clear evidence that said passing up was racially motivated? Given the lack of information in this email, there's nothing for outside observers to form opinions on.
Signed, a POC.
You’re POC but not Black, it shows. Our experiences are not shared as much as you all like to clump us together. So of course you would say what you just said.
OP - please don’t take the folks here looking for every single justification there can be to delegitimize the spirit of the email seriously. People are very uncomfortable accepting that sometimes bad things happen to people who don’t deserve it and for no reason at all. It makes us all feel vulnerable - “I could be next!”
It’s very unfortunate that she had to go through horrible experiences and eventually left. I hope she finds a place where she is respected the way she should be.
Rising Star
Analysts suffer treatment like this on a regular basis but no one cares because they are lower on the totem pole lol
what evidence is there that she was denied promotion specifically because of her race or gender? she didn’t present any. not even hearsay. of course what she is saying is possible. it is also possible that her lack of advancement has nothing to do with gender or race.
i would expect such bold claims to have at least some evidence - she clearly didn’t mind burning the bridge, so why not burn the house down? if she sold more work than a white guy who did get a promo, wouldn’t she have said so? if she wasn’t in a position to know that, then how could she know she was denied promo on the basis of race/gender?
What's presented in the email:
"The Partners and Directors team that helped me prepare my case worked with me to escalate this injustice at top levels of our firm."
She clearly lacks judgement. That could be one reason why she didn’t make it. Lots of people get great performance reviews but don’t make the cut. Being unable to forge relationships with sufficient number peers and sponsors is a typical reason. Easy to see how someone might read that as discrimination.
Wow the pwc folks commenting here do give a flavor of the culture!
This is an actual resignation email that went out to people in PWC from her identified account??
Just asking because Damnnn that takes guts!
Can someone share a screenshot?
8.
11.
What's the tea?
9.
Can confirm. PwC culture was not the best. Ours is a lot better.
Rising Star
Good job AC1 ! Sheeks this is shocking.
Rising Star
OP delivers!!!
And not a single metric that indicates promotion worthiness. Just finger pointing.
OP - you clearly know her on a personal level and are defending her having more information than SM1.
However, think from someone reading just the email - there's no proof of any wrong doing and her remarks around less black folks on the panel - I mean there are more black folks at PWC leadership as compared to the population.
She kept saying black and woman - which one is it?
I'm not saying there isn't racism prevalent in
Corporate America but do you really expect everyone to just believe everything she said without any information?
Rising Star
Wonder how PWC handles this one. Hard to believe someone going up 3 times is denied 3 separate years because of their gender or race in this day and age.
Also I don’t get the need to throw hissy fit for a partner saying that they read caged bird. I mean what’s so wrong with that and how is that relevant to the conversation at hand?
Chief
🤦‍♀️
Pro
I used to work in HR at pwc.
Not surprised. I didn’t see outright racism but definitely an “old boys club” existed amongst the partners, majority of which are old white men who had tendencies to support their (also white) mentees who were often the child of friends/clients or were within their same racial and economic class.
I experienced this when I was at Deloitte, after a senior manager attacked me in a parking lot in front of my research assistant. He got mad because I was in the middle of interviewing someone and wasn’t checking my email to see that he was bored and wanted to leave. He left the interview because he had an “important call” and was out front discussing weekend plans. I told him I hoped he got his important business addressed and he snapped at me as we drove away. Then he roughed me up when we parked and got out of the car. “I have 20 years of experience doing this, when I say we’re done, we’re done.” I had an out of body experience as he was screaming in my face and I was up against the car. He was a big guy and I’m a petite lady. My research assistant, a kid in his 20s, pushed him off of me. He was fired off the project but not from the company. Because I couldn’t recall exactly what had happened, whether he’d actually hit or pushed me into the car, they told me there wasn’t anything egregious. I later heard he’d done something similar to a female PPD and somehow the guy kept his job.
I had few more experiences at Deloitte that weren’t great, and I never felt like I could get to the next level despite being well over my utilization targets, selling work, etc. I miss being in consulting but I don’t want to go back to any of that.
10.
Who is to say whether this was actually a discrimination issue or a poor performer blaming her fortunes on racism. I’m a colored, foreign-born guy and don’t think PwC discriminates in this day and age.
Your experience of not being discriminated against cannot and will not deny the identity and experiences of those who have been harmed. Be grateful that you haven’t been affected, but hope to God you also develop empathy and respect for those fellow humans who have been impacted. That’s called being human.
Rising Star
So many companies with horrid diversity at the top = terrible culture. Not surprised at all