As the Silicon Valley Community Foundation deals with fallout from allegations of harassment, bullying, and leadership misconduct, its top human-resources official has resigned.
Daiva Natochy, vice president for talent, recruitment, and culture, is the second executive in three weeks to step down from the fund. Mari Ellen Loijens, chief business, development, and brand officer, resigned on April 19 a day after the Chronicle reported accounts by more than a dozen former foundation employees who described Loijens as abusive and manipulative.
In response to the situation, the foundation launched an investigation into Loijens’s behavior and the broader workplace culture. Last week, its Board of Directors placed CEO Emmett Carson on paid leave and named Greg Avis, a founding board member and former chair, as interim chief executive.
Attempts to reach Natochy by social media and by email on Tuesday were unsuccessful. Avis confirmed Natochy’s resignation in a letter to the foundation’s constituents, including donors, grantees, and corporations that work with the fund to operate employee giving programs. The foundation will “work to fill that position soon. In the interim, we are putting a team and process in place to ensure best HR practices are upheld throughout this period,” Avis said. A spokeswoman for the foundation said that interim team would help carry out the investigation now under way.
Budget Funds for Investigation
The upheaval comes as the foundation — one of the country’s largest grant makers with about $13.5 billion in assets, much of it in donor-advised funds — prepares to co-host a California gubernatorial election debate next week in San Jose.
Avis’s email, obtained Tuesday by the Chronicle, states that the foundation will not use money earmarked for charity via its donor-advised funds to cover the cost of the investigation. Rather, it will be paid for with the foundation’s operating budget surplus, and if necessary, its reserves.
Avis wrote that he is meeting with staff members individually and in groups to try and address concerns. He noted that there have been no allegations of financial impropriety at the foundation.
“I have high confidence that we will not only get through this challenging time but will take this opportunity to improve our organization and our ability to serve you and the community at large,” Avis said in the letter.
Foundation Staff Demand Change
In a letter last week, current foundation employees called on the board to place Natochy on leave pending the investigation results. The employees, who did not sign their names but did disclose their positions and organizational divisions, did not accuse Natochy of misconduct but asserted that she, Carson, and a third executive, Paul Velaski, were “responsible for this toxicity at SVCF.”
The Chronicle verified the legitimacy of the letter with one current staff member who signed it and two former staff members with direct knowledge of it.
In a separate letter last week, 25 former foundation employees called for the Board of Directors to fire Carson, contending the CEO tolerated inappropriate and unprofessional behavior by Loijens, his second in command, for years.
Among other things, former staff members have told the Chronicle that Loijens would subject colleagues to vicious public criticism that left some in tears, and that she routinely made inappropriate comments about individuals’ physical appearances and comments that were sexual in nature.
