Levi’s has a long history of political positions like gay rights, immigrants, gun control, and voting rights.
Jennifer Sey joined the company in 1999 as an assistant marketing manager. She had worked her way up the corporate ladder and became Levi’s first woman brand president, potentially becoming their next CEO.
Sey has long been an advocate for standing up for what she believes in, and Levi’s initially applauded her outspokenness and candor in speaking out about issues she felt strongly about.
That is until her beliefs became different than theirs. Sey advocated for schools to reopen amid the pandemic, citing that her own children were showing negative personality/social effects of not attending school in person. Despite being urged by Levi’s management to stop speaking about political issues, she continued and appeared on Fox News in a town hall meeting.
Once again, Levi’s urged her to stop speaking about school closures and even mentioned that she could be the next CEO if she did. They went so far as to give her a list of topics to NOT speak about (such as the California governor recall vote, vaccine mandates, and the motives of pharma companies) and created a dossier of her daily online interactions to be reviewed by the current CEO, who told her she was “acting like [President] Donald Trump.”
Sey was eventually told that she no longer had a future with Levi’s, and she decided to walk away without the $1-million dollar severance package and the non-disclosure that went along with it!
She said, “I quit so I could be free.”
There’s a lot more to this story, but it basically comes down to a company with a long history of controversial political positions needing to be more consistent.
Levi’s took strong positions on social issues that did not necessarily reflect the beliefs/ feelings/ opinions of the entire company and its employees but dismissed Sey for imitating their actions.
