Two female former employees of Okta have publicly accused the company of having a major gender discrimination problem — one in a lawsuit and the other on a viral LinkedIn post.
Both women have alleged systemic patterns of gender discrimination at the San Francisco-headquartered firm: Bias against women within the company, fewer opportunities for women to advance, and, most damningly, retaliation for speaking out against gender bias by top-level stakeholders at the company.
Okta’s most popular product is a single sign-on (SSO) platform — a more convenient way to access work-specific applications. It’s widely used by large corporations and governments, including Live Nation, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Slack, and the California Secretary of State.
Hiu Ho, an employee who started at Okta in 2019 as a contractor but worked up to a director-level role by the end of her tenure, filed a lawsuit this month in San Francisco Superior Court against her former employer six months after she was laid off by the company.
“Gender bias is pervasive at Okta,” the lawsuit alleges. “The employee satisfaction surveys will show substantially different ratings by male versus female workers.”
For context, according to Okta’s latest “state of inclusion report,” two-thirds of the company’s staff is male; that number goes up to 76.5% when accounting for solely technical workers. More than 70% of VP-level and above leadership is also male.
Okta, which trades on the NASDAQ and has a market cap of around $16 billion, did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Gazetteer SF.
Do you know what’s going on inside Okta? Email joshua@gazetteer.co or message him on Signal at joshua.8073 using a personal device.
Ho details multiple instances of male managers and colleagues looping her out of conversations and treating female employees differently than male employees. But the suit focuses mainly on Durlabh Jain, the global head of strategic sourcing and procurement at Okta, who Ho allegedly worked closely with. Jain was hired in 2022, and it was in the following years where the culture of sexism really intensified, her lawyer alleged. (Jain did not respond to a request for comment from Gazetteer SF.)
“It was really over the last two years that Ms. Ho noticed a real exodus of women from the company,” Ho’s attorney, Stephen Ilg, told Gazetteer SF in an interview.
The suit alleges that Jain “did not respect female employees and that it was demoralizing and frustrating to work with him” to the point where “he lost almost his entire … team except a couple of male employees” within months. One specific deal led by Ho — which was commandeered by Jain, according to the suit — resulted in “a ‘fire drill’ and unnecessary risk and stress” because of his “unpreparedness, lack of background and expertise.” Rather than take the blame, he allegedly fabricated “an accusation claiming Ms. Ho was harassing his team and creating a hostile environment.”
Ho’s supervisor, senior director of engineering ops, Karthick Solaimalai, believed him, per the suit.
Jain allegedly launched a campaign against Ho, allegedly “asking his employees … to write emails accusing [her] of not following procedures, which he then forwarded to Mr. Solaimalai.” The emails allegedly resulted in Solaimail reducing Ho’s responsibilities over time. (Solaimalai also did not respond to a request for comment from Gazetteer SF.)
The suit also alleges that Ho was punished for going to HR, which “sided with management to allow the bullying and bias[ed] treatment to continue.” “Going to HR essentially made her an even bigger target,” the suit alleges.
“Ms. Ho went from a top performer to an underperformer immediately after she complained about gender discrimination,” according to the suit, receiving poor and infrequent reviews after years of solid performance reviews from the company. She was laid off in November 2023, along with two other women “who had spoken up about discrimination.”
“Like other women, Ms. Ho was encouraged to speak up and was told this is a ‘safe place to tell all,’ but it was a big trap,” the suit reads. “Once she found courage to speak, she was retaliated against.”
Ho filed the suit days after another female employee, Heather Wallander, publicly posted on LinkedIn about resigning from Okta two days after getting promoted to a senior manager position at the company. Her post received more than 17,000 reactions on LinkedIn. (She declined to comment on her posts, citing pending litigation.)
“All of my peers, including those with less tenure, became Sr. Manager last year,” Wallander wrote in the post. Wallander adds that the delay was because higher-ups saw her as "high strung.” She also alleges that higher-ups made a “biased decision” that would have hindered her career — and was punished for arguing against the decision.
Details about Wallander’s circumstances remain vague. She declined to comment on her posts, citing pending litigation. But many of the contours — retaliation within the company, fruitless HR reports, “flimsy justifications” from leadership and HR about mistreatment of women — appear similar to Ho’s alleged tribulations at Okta. She also explained how she was “concerned that two women were laid off due to what was appearing more and more like gender discrimination.” It is unclear if that refers to Ho and the two other women who were allegedly laid off in November 2023.
“After 599 days of fighting for change internally, I am walking away so that I can emotionally and mentally withstand the legal battle to come,” Wallander wrote in the post.
