11-20-2017
Claire Schmidt has left her position as VP of technology and innovation at 20th Century Fox Studios to create a new website called “AllVoices.” The website will provide a portal for anonymous first-hand reports of harassment, discrimination, and/or bias to company CEOs and their boards. According to Ms. Schmidt’s research, employees felt significant consequences to their careers when complaints were made through Human Resources. Ms. Schmidt has stated that as a sexual assault victim herself, she believed that she could do more to address the problem.AllVoices will accumulate the data of complaints, aggregate the reports, and deliver it to CEO’s absent any identifying information. Once the information is reported to a company, AllVoices will post on the site that fact as well as any action taken in response to the harassment report. It is hoped that this transparency and accountability will incentivize companies to prioritize complaints. Investors and advisors for the new website include former Google executive Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Tinder co-founder Sean Rad, Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff and the law firm of Wilson Sonsini. Susan Fowler, the former Uber engineer who posted a blog about sexual harassment in the tech workplace, will also be an advisor.
Companies will have access to the website for free, however a premium option will provide more details on the types of incidents reported. One unnamed investor said the idea was to convey to the companies the scale of the problems and get boards to talk culture and business metrics. The site is expected to be launched in the next couple weeks.