Sey was well liked internally and was an executive sponsor of the company’s resource group for Black employees. A mother of four - two of her children are college age while the other two are 5 and 7 - Ms. She was regularly offered up to journalists for interviews, along with Chip Bergh, the company’s chief executive.
Sey, a former national champion gymnast, was the chief marketing officer at Levi’s before being promoted to brand president in October 2020. “That blurring is part of the discomfort for Levi’s, and it’s part of the issue that Jen Sey has confronted,” she added. Now, “whatever it is we’re saying or posting, we’re posting in front of all the people in our lives.” “You used to be able to segment who you are - you could go to church and behave like you did in church and go to work and behave like you did at work, then out with friends and behave that way,” she said. Sey’s situation, including her frustration with how colleagues interpreted her personal views, was an example of an increasingly common phenomenon in the digital age known as “context collapse.” Sarah Sobieraj, a professor of sociology at Tufts University, said Ms. Sey said she did not think that companies like Levi’s needed to endorse specific viewpoints from employees, but they should “stand up for an employee’s right to speech on what they care about.” Sey “did this at a time in 20 when hospitalizations and deaths from Covid were spiking, when the company had its own employees hospitalized, and in some cases dying, and companies like Levi’s were using guidance from public health officials to implement policies to keep our employees and consumers safe.” Sey’s advocacy on schools, but that she “went far beyond calling for schools to reopen, and frequently used her platform to criticize public health guidelines and denounce elected officials and government scientists.” It “would not contain a prohibition on the executive speaking out about matters of public interest such as school closures or on engaging in any legally protected speech,” Kelly McGinnis, the senior vice president of corporate affairs at Levi’s, said in a statement. Sey had quit rather than negotiate an exit package, which would have contained a nondisclosure agreement. Sey’s account of events, including her claims that she was punished because her views veered from “left-leaning orthodoxy” and that she walked away from a $1 million severance package in order to be able speak freely about the company. She also noted that Levi’s - which has been vocal about hot-button issues like gun control - had not previously complained when she posted on social media in support of Democratic politicians like Senator Elizabeth Warren or more liberal causes. Sey said she was speaking as a concerned mother, not a corporate executive. The tweets came when Levi’s was using public health guidance to manage protocols across hundreds of stores and in distribution centers.
Sey’s outspokenness drew criticism both inside and outside the company, including threats of boycotts. (“Currently there is not enough evidence for or against the use of masks (medical or other) for healthy individuals in the wider community,” she posted in May 2020.) She also expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of masking, mostly for young children. (“So when is Fauci going to stop doing the morning shows on Sunday, terrorizing the already fearful?” she tweeted in April 2021.) Fauci, whom she accused of fear mongering. Sey’s tweets were about schools, but some of them criticized guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Dr. It touched on issues like whether corporations can control the personal speech of their employees, particularly in a period of isolation, and the politics tied to speaking on certain platforms, like Fox News opinion shows. Sey’s unusual exit last month from Levi’s after more than 20 years generated a flurry of headlines, with her claiming in a widely circulated essay that her advocacy for school reopenings during the pandemic made her a pariah at work and ultimately led to her ouster.īut the road to her departure was complicated. Sey was out of a job, in part, in her telling, because of her activity on Twitter.
Before 2020, Jennifer Sey, a top executive at Levi Strauss & Company and a leading candidate to be the company’s next leader, barely used social media.
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