VMware Strips Leadership Role From Ex-AWS Manager After Blowback

(Bloomberg) -- VMware Inc. is pressing ahead with plans to hire a former Amazon.com Inc. executive, but is scaling back his responsibilities after employees protested the appointment.  

The Palo Alto, California-based company said last month that former Amazon Web Services executive Joshua Burgin would join as a leader in the software vendor’s developer and application platform division, known internally as DAP. The decision to hire Burgin, who faced an internal workplace discrimination investigation at Amazon’s cloud unit, elicited blowback from employees. General Manager Ajay Patel, one of two VMware executives who said they would stake their reputations on Burgin’s hiring, had promised to consider the complaints and report back in 10 days.

Burgin “will not be placed in a leadership role in the DAP domain as originally planned,” Chief Executive Officer Rangarajan Raghuram wrote in an email Tuesday to employees. “The overwhelming volume of first-hand data we collected demonstrated Joshua’s commitment to inclusive behavior and values. However, the concerns and feedback expressed by many of our employees is an equally important factor that we took into consideration.” 

Raghuram said Burgin would be work in a more limited capacity as an “individual contributor.” His official title will be vice president of product operations and technical strategy. Burgin will report to vice president Craig McLuckie. A VMware spokesperson confirmed the decision. 

Raghuram added that the decision would be “difficult and deeply personal” for some and directed employees to an internal site for wellbeing resources. He also said VMware would seek to improve its pre-offer diligence process.

More than 450 employees had signed an internal petition urging VMware to rescind Burgin’s job offer, including more than a third of the workers in the department that he would have led, according to internal messages viewed by Bloomberg.  

In a separate email, Patel acknowledged a “trust gap” and pledged to “earn and build trust in the place that it is broken or not strong enough.”

“Our assumptions and approach further eroded trust, for which I am truly sorry,” Patel wrote. 

McLuckie also urged employees to consider several points -- including that “half of Joshua’s direct reports at Amazon were women” and his Jewish faith -- as evidence that Burgin values diversity and inclusion, per an email he sent to staff. 

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