Refinery29

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Refinery29 (R29) is an American multinational digital media and entertainment website focused on young women founded by Philippe von Borries, Justin Stefano, Piera Gelardi, Christene Barberich in 2005.[1] The company headquarters is located in the Financial District, Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. As of 2017, Refinery29 reaches an audience of over 500 million globally.[2]

On October 2, 2019, Vice Media announced that it would acquire Refinery29. The deal, worth a reported $400 million, values the combined company at $4 billion.[3]

Controversy

In June 2020, a number of former employees came forward on Twitter to call out what they saw as hypocrisy on the part of the website's leadership, especially when it came to matters of race and diversity.[4] This happened after Refinery29 swapped the colors of its website, going from its usual jewel-tone to the Black Lives Matter movement's signature black. Ashley Alese Edwards, a former employee who now works at the Google News Lab, tweeted to Refinery29 “But you know what real allyship looks like? Paying your Black employees fairly, having Black women in top leadership positions & addressing the microaggressions your Black employees deal with from management on a daily basis”.

Within a day, other former employees began replying to the tweet with their own stories — that an executive had mistaken a black employee for a caterer, that editor-in-chief Christene Barberich cried in a meeting because someone had said she was “squeamish” about race, that a white talent director spoke down to a black intern in a meeting full of white women, and that there was a rumor that the same man had thrown a stapler at another black female employee. The chain quickly evolved into a hashtag, #BlackAtR29, which acted as a hub for the dozens of stories about Refinery’s toxic company culture.[5]

Refinery released an apology on June 5, said that they would do anything to hold themselves accountable. Along with the statement, Christene Barberich also announced that she will step down from her position as editor-in-chief.[6]

Reference