A high-flying female executive who was sacked from her £220,000 job at a firm run by ‘tech bros’ after spending the night in a sauna on a boozy work trip is still waiting for the compensation she is owed.
Shannon Burns – who was on £220,000 a year – is ‘nowhere near receiving a penny’ because the tech company she successfully sued have lodged a ‘desperate’ appeal, her lawyer said.
As well as appealing the ruling made last year, Gitpod – headed up by ‘tech bros’ – are also questioning whether Ms Burns actually has ADHD, despite her having medical diagnoses.
Ms Burns’ life has been ‘devastated’ as she has been diagnosed with PTSD in the aftermath of losing her job three years ago and she had to leave the technology industry altogether following the discrimination.
An employment tribunal judge previously ruled that Ms Burns had ADHD and that it contributed to her forgetting her keys during a boozy work trip abroad which led to her spending the night in a sauna.
She was dismissed for her behaviour at the off-site event, despite her claims that male colleagues were ‘far more intoxicated’ and faced no punishment.
The engineer was headhunted for a senior role at Gitpod which she took on with the promise of a six figure salary and an equity package potentially worth over £30million, the hearing was told.
Employment Judge Rachel Wedderspoon ruled that she experienced a ‘great deal of forgetfulness’ as a result of her ADHD and Ms Burns was in line for compensation.
Shannon Burns – who was on £220,000 a year – is ‘nowhere near receiving a penny’ because the tech company she successfully sued have lodged a ‘desperate’ appeal, her lawyer said
However, her former employer Gitpod is now appealing against the tribunal’s judgment that it discriminated against her.
It is also arguing against the judge’s finding that Ms Burns was disabled because of ADHD, according to Ms Burns’s lawyer, Tara Grossman.
Ms Grossman said: ‘This is ridiculous. It’s been almost three years since Shannon was, we say, unlawfully fired and she is nowhere near receiving a penny.’
Gitpod will be arguing in a hearing on May 8 that the compensation hearing due to take place in September should be moved back until after their appeals are dealt with in March next year.
‘This is despite the fact that two medical professionals and a judge have confirmed her condition,’ Ms Grossman said.
She continued: ‘In my opinion, by appealing the disability ruling, Gitpod (now known as Ona) is demonstrating a clear act of desperation.
‘This is an employer that is trying to drag out litigation against a disabled person who has already had to endure years of legal proceedings.
‘This appeal is not about correcting legal errors (which is what an appeal should be about). It’s clearly about a well-resourced employer using the appeals process to delay accountability and inflict further harm on Shannon, whose life has already been devastated by their discrimination.
‘When Gitpod employed Shannon as VP of Engineering, she was excelling in her career. In 10 years she had achieved what many tech engineers take a lifetime to achieve – and many never do.
‘Then Gitpod fired her within six months for reasons a tribunal found were rooted in disability discrimination. The fallout has been irreversibly damaging.’
Ms Grossman added that Ms Burns ‘has been unable to secure anywhere near a comparable role despite years of trying’.
‘She’s now had to leave the technology industry altogether and is retraining in an entirely new, far less lucrative field,’ she continued.
‘Gitpod didn’t just take Shannon’s job, they took the career and identity she had spent a decade building.
‘Rather than accept responsibility, Gitpod is now appealing the judgment. Shannon will continue to vigorously defend that appeal.’
The original employment tribunal, held in Birmingham, was told that Ms Burns was diagnosed with ADHD in 2015.
It heard that the condition caused Ms Burns to experience a ‘great deal of forgetfulness’ and she would ‘persistently’ lose items such as her keys and phone.
American Ms Burns – who had previously worked for Silicon Valley firm Slack – was headhunted by Gitpod in late 2022 and appointed to the key leadership role of Vice President of Engineering.
She was hired on a £200,000 salary with a £78,000 bonus per year.
In February 2023, Ms Burns contacted the Head of People at Gitpod and asked for an ADHD coach as she was feeling ‘deeply overwhelmed’ with her workload and was experiencing ‘a worrying level of anxiety’.
Concerns were raised in March 2023 about Ms Burns’s performance and it was said that there was a ‘lack of progress’ and she was ‘struggling to adapt to the async working style’.
In April 2023, Gitpod held an off-site team building event in Lofer, Austria and Ms Burns told the tribunal that she was ‘excited’ to meet her colleagues, who all work remotely across 14 countries.
The judge said Ms Burns had accepted that her ‘impairments were exacerbated by the consumption of alcohol’ one evening.
Judge Wedderspoon found that while CEO Johannes Landgraf had been drinking on the same evening, he was not intoxicated.
That evening, Ms Burns went back to her room but found that the door was locked and she did not have a key to get in.
Her roommate had fallen asleep and Ms Burns – who had locked herself out of her room on another occasion during the trip – was not able to wake her despite trying several times to call and message her.
The judge said that eventually Ms Burns ‘gave up’ and went to sleep in the sauna.
After the off-site event, Mr Landgraf had concerns about Ms Burns’s ‘lack of professional accountability’ and behaviours which were ‘incompatible with executive responsibility’.
Ms Burns previously said she was told by female colleagues that Johannes Landgraf (pictured) had a reputation of being a ‘Tech Bro who liked to surround himself with fellow tech bros’
In June, Ms Burns was invited to a meeting where she was dismissed.
During the conversation, she was told that the ways she ‘showed up’ at the offsite had ‘eroded trust and confidence in the leadership team’.
Ms Burns said in her witness statement: ‘My male colleagues were drinking alcohol/drunk at the offsite but I was the only one who was dismissed.
‘One of my male colleagues [Johannes] behaved in a far more damaging way for both his own reputation and for Gitpod after ‘consuming alcohol’ at the offsite.’
She brought claims of sex discrimination and disability discrimination to the tribunal.
Ms Burns complained of the ‘tech bro’ culture at the firm, but the judge said she did not accept the description as being applicable to Gitpod.
The tribunal found that Ms Burns was dismissed as a consequence of her disabilities.
Upholding her disability discrimination claims, Judge Wedderspoon said: ‘[Ms Burns] had consumed quite a lot of alcohol on one night of the offsite when she got locked out of her room.
‘However, being disorganised and forgetful may be features of ADHD.
‘The Tribunal found that losing her keys on the first occasion and being locked out was likely to be something arising from her forgetfulness, a feature of [Ms Burns’] ADHD.
‘However, drinking alcohol is likely to have played a part of being locked out later in the evening…
‘Insofar as [Ms Burns] was criticised for being locked out in the evening the tribunal finds that this was likely in part to be as a result of the combination of her alcohol consumption and her forgetfulness which is a something arising from her disability of ADHD.’
