The former vice president of sales and marketing at Rivian, Laura Schwab, has filed a lawsuit against the automaker in the Orange County Superior Court for gender discrimination and retaliation, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Schwab joined the EV startup in November 2020 having previously served as president of Aston Martin of the Americas for five years and spending more than a decade working at Jaguar Land Rover. However, writing in a Medium blog post, Schwab claims she “almost immediately experienced a toxic bro culture that marginalizes women” when she joined Rivian.
Schwab claims that Rivian founder and chief executive R.J. Scaringe has “surrounded himself with a tight knit group of men who constantly had his ear,” and that there is a lack of automotive experience among other top executives. Schwab adds that she was left out of countless meetings where she should have been present and repeatedly raised concerns about vehicle pricing and manufacturing deadlines to no avail. It wasn’t until less experienced male colleagues raised similar concerns that Rivian’s (unnamed) Chief Commercial Officer would respond.
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The “blatant marginalization” prompted Schwab to ask another female senior executive to be included in meetings regarding sales planning and volumes, but was shocked to hear that this female executive was also being excluded from such meetings. She approached her HR business partner with her concerns but just two days later, was called into a meeting with the Chief Commercial Officer where she was fired. He claimed it was part of a “reorganization,” but Schwab says she was the only individual fired.
“It is unbelievable that two high-level female executives would be left out of these meetings directly impacting their work,” Schwab added in her blog post. “This was not the culture that Rivian prided itself on, and I realized that to change it I needed to raise my voice.”
Schwab adds that the reasoning for her being fired is “simply not credible” just as Rivian started to deliver vehicles and prior to it becoming a publicly-traded company.
