Jen Oneal, who held the post of Blizzard co-CEO until November, said that she was offered an equal salary with another co-CEO, Mike Ybarra, only after she made decisions to leave the company. Before that, she had been refused a salary increase several times.
Jen Onil
In connection with the accusations of concealment of harassment by Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, new information has emerged about the reasons for the departure of Jen Onil from the company.
Recall that she was appointed co-head of Blizzard in August. A little earlier, she was the president of the company’s development for six months, and before that she headed Vicarious Visions for a long time (Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 and Diablo II: Resurrected).
This reason could be a lower salary compared to Ibarra. Onil told the Wall Street Journal that she sent a letter to Activision Blizzard’s legal department complaining that her salary was less than Ibarra’s, as well as that she was being discriminated against and marginalized.
As it became known to IGN today, in response to these accusations, Mike Ibarra made a statement in a working Slack. According to the current head of Blizzard, he and Onil really had different salaries. However, Mike notes that he and Onil asked for equal pay conditions: “I want to clarify: Jen and I informed the management that we want to receive the same salary as Blizzard co-heads.”
In response to a question from one of the employees why Blizzard’s management rejected the request, Ibarra replied: “Jen and I had contracts coming to an end. I was responsible for Battle.net and Online Products, and she’s behind Vicarious Visions. So the level of payment we had was different. When we got new contracts together, they were the same. Accordingly, the salary should have been the same.”
In an interview with IGN, Jen declined to comment on the situation in detail, noting that she “does not want to be involved in the Slack debate.” However, she stated that she did not receive an equivalent offer exactly until she applied for dismissal.
“When Mike and I were appointed co-managers, our salaries remained the same. And they were not equivalent to each other. And they remained so after we were refused several times to level them,” she added.
For context: the rate of Bobby Kotick for this year should be $ 875 thousand. He will also receive compensation in the amount of $150 million in shares.