Checkout.com faces executive exodus, makes layoffs ‘with stealth’
Just over a year after raising $1 billion in a Series D funding round, Europe’s gold-plated payments startup Checkout.com is facing an exodus from its management team and making a series of unannounced layoffs.
In the past nine months, six executives who reported directly to CEO Guillaume Pousaz have left the company, according to people familiar with the moves.
After publicly cutting staff by 5% last September, sources also tell Sifted that Checkout has made further cuts in a series of “stealth layoffs” over the past three months.
Exec exodus
In the past nine months, six executives who reported directly to Pousaz, including two members of the C-suite, have quit or been fired, according to three people familiar with the matter. This means that the C-suite has decreased from eight to six members.
Head of crypto strategy Jess Houlgrave stepped down from the company in March, after joining three years ago as chief of staff. She has updated her LinkedIn to show that she has now left the company.
Her departure follows the departure of Checkout’s chief marketing officer Leela Srinivasan last month. Pousaz announced her retirement at an all-hands meeting on February 1. She had been with the company for a year and a half, and was in the C-suite.
This coincided with the public announcement of CFO Celine Dufetel’s promotion to “president and chief operating officer” (having previously been CFO and COO), with increased mandate including marketing.
Dufetel and Chief People Officer Kerry Van Voris are the only remaining female members of Checkout’s C-suite.
Mike Benchimol, the company’s former chief operating officer — who sat on the company’s board — also stepped down last summer and will leave at the end of 2022. He had transitioned to a role as head of strategic financial partnerships in April 2022, according to his LinkedIn.
Olivia Broderick, who was Checkout’s general counsel and chief regulatory officer for nearly two and a half years, left the company last September.
Riaz Bordie, the company’s former CTO and then SVP of engineering, resigned last November. He had been with the company for nine years. Chief revenue officer Nick Worswick, formerly head of sales at WeWork, was fired in July 2022, the same people tell Sifted. He had been with the company for a year and a half, and was a member of the C-suite.
Dozens of other senior staff, including several legal, risk and compliance directors, have left the company in the past 12 months, according to documents seen by Sifted. Their departure has been a combination of layoffs and resignations due to corporate culture or changed business strategy, say the three people.
When Sifted contacted Checkout.com about these departures, a spokesperson said: “Departures from our leadership team are by mutual agreement, and we are grateful for their contributions and leadership in establishing the foundation of our business and getting Checkout.com to where it is. . Today.”
Redundancies by stealth
Checkout has also reduced the total number of employees gradually over the past three months, three former employees tell Sifted.
All but one of Checkout’s customer service operations team in London was laid off in late February, according to two employees who recently left the company. The entire French underwriting team of three employees was laid off in mid-March, according to the two former employees, as was half of the talent acquisition team.
“People are just waiting around to see if they get laid off. It’s death by 1000 cuts”
Last week, around 20 Checkout employees from the marketing and commercial teams were laid off, the former employees tell Sifted. People from several other teams, including HR and learning and development, have taken to LinkedIn to announce that they have been laid off in recent weeks.
“We’re seeing about 20 to 30 deactivations on Slack a week right now from Checkout,” says one of the former employees.
These are “dismissals by stealth”, says one of the former employees.
“Every team except sales has lost at least a few people,” another former employee tells Sifted.
Since the layoffs in September, Checkout’s LinkedIn page shows the company has lost another 100 employees in total. A spokesperson said the company’s current headcount is 1,840. Before the September 2022 layoffs, the headcount was 2,034.
– It has been terrible for the employees, one stroke would have been much better, says one of the former employees to Sifted.
“Every week they don’t know who is going to disappear and people are just waiting around to see if they get laid off. It’s death by 1000 cuts.”
The company’s Glassdoor page also contains several reviews cites layoffs in the past three months, as does the more tech-focused forum Blind.
“The pressure from late-stage investors is real, and this leads to people being pressured to quit, rather than making a formal layoff,” says one former employee’s Glassdoor review.
“23. February — Another massive round of layoffs affecting talented people. Mar ’23 – More layoffs and layoffs affected more people,” another Glassdoor review said.
Meanwhile, over on a dead end, several people are advising a Checkout job candidate to avoid the company.
“There are rolling redundancies that happen weekly. Long-term employees are pushed out with little/no explanation and treated horribly,” says one comment.
“There have been several rounds of stealth layoffs and generally pushing people to leave through very unpopular political decisions,” another comment said.
A Checkout spokesperson said the headcount is “a combination of natural attrition and resource planning”.
Amy O’Brien is Sifted’s fintech reporter. She tweets from @Amy_EOBrien and writes our fintech newsletter — You can register here.
