TaskRabbit CEO Stacy Brown-Philpot announced today that she is stepping down from her role at the freelance labor marketplace.
Brown-Philpot joined TaskRabbit seven years ago as the company’s chief operating officer and was promoted to CEO in the spring of 2016. In the fall of 2017, the company was acquired for undisclosed financial terms in a stock deal by Ikea and has continued to operate independently as a subsidiary of the company.
Brown-Philpot had previously spent nearly nine years in a variety of roles at Google, beginning as a sales director and leaving as a senior director of global consumer operations.
We’ve reached out to TaskRabbit for more information. In the meantime, in an interview earlier today with the New York Times, Brown-Philpot she will remain in her role until August’s end, as the company’s looks to bring aboard her successor.
Brown-Philpot, who is among a small number of Black women who have led tech companies as chief executive — others include former Xerox CEO Ursula Burns and Zoox CEO Aicha Evans — tells the outlet that she had planned to leave the company before global protests erupted roughly one month ago in reaction to the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. But she suggests that they have impacted her deeply, saying: “Every time somebody asks me how I’m doing, I process either consciously or subconsciously some form of racism that I’ve experienced. It’s torn apart families and communities. I’m just deeply frustrated by it all.”
Brown-Philpot says she has not yet decided on her next moves quite yet, but will seemingly be busy nonetheless. In addition to director roles with HP and Nordstrom, she recently agreed to serve as an adviser to a new $100 million fund that SoftBank announced two weeks ago to support companies led by people of color.
TaskRabbit, like many gig-economy companies, has been hard hit by the pandemic, but the company has remained opened for business throughout, including connecting “Taskers” with virtual tasks and launching in April Tasks for Good, which connects vulnerable individuals in need with Taskers willing to volunteer their time to help.
