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December 10, 2019 02:10 pm

Away Fires CEO Steph Korey After Months-Long Search for Her Replacement

Away, an online seller of luggage that investors valued at $1.4 billion earlier this year, said late Monday its chief executive Steph Korey is stepping down. Korey will become executive chairman of the New York City-based startup. Stuart Haselden, who is departing as chief operating officer at Lululemon Athletica, will succeed her as CEO, according to the company. Away co-founder Jen Rubio will remain president and chief brand officer. The news comes after an article in the Verge last week criticized Korey's management style as harsh, citing several former employees unhappy with the work environment. Korey apologized in a statement on Twitter last week, saying she has worked with an executive coach to "improve as a leader." John Gruber, writing at DaringFireball: It surely is not spin that Away's board -- led by Rubio, Korey's fellow co-founder -- had been searching to replace Korey for months. You can't hire the COO of Lululemon in three days in light of a PR crisis. So I think it's pretty clear that The Verge inadvertently got played. They got fed the story and ran with it in a way that pinned all of the company's purported cultural problems on Korey. All six sources were anonymous former employees (and, coincidentally or not, women). There was a lot about that Verge story that struck me as weird. Why shouldn't the CEO be furious that the company somehow sent customers suitcases that had been used in a beach photo shoot and were covered with sand and other debris? But one of the strangest things was that while it was ostensibly a story about the company, the actual story felt almost entirely like a hit on Korey, personally. No other executive's Slack messages were quoted as evidence of the perceived cultural problems. So now the narrative is not "Away fires woman CEO and co-founder, replaces her with a man." Instead, the narrative is "Away fires CEO who created 'toxic culture,' brings in fresh leadership" -- a narrative that wouldn't be possible without The Verge's story last Thursday. Hiring Haselden to run Away is an interesting choice...

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