On Monday, The Wrap reported that Beatriz Acevedo, mitú’s founder/president, Herb Scannell, the network’s CEO, are no longer in their roles.
According to the story, Mark Suster of UpFront Ventures, an Mitú investor, “said both executives will remain advisors, and founder Acevedo will keep her board seat while she pivots to social activism and developing Latina and Latino leadership in business and politics. Scannell prioritized mitú’s intellectual property and is ready to move on.”
“mitú is doing 10s of millions in revenue and has grown rapidly over the last several years, but the market has very clearly told us —and not just us, Buzzfeed, Vice and other people— that the market values profitability over growth at all costs,” Suster told The Wrap.
The story also said that layoffs also happened on Monday at mitú, although it is not clear how many people lost their jobs, although some former employees are sharing their news on social media.
A Facebook post by Lucy Flores, a VP at mitú, said this: “Friends, most executive and senior staff was let go today. I am very proud of the meaningful content that was produced and the voices we were able to uplift during my tenure as VP of Public Affairs. There is much more to come so stay tuned for our next venture that will double down on our commitment to empowering the next generation of Latino voices in this country. We can not afford to give up, and we never will.”
A quick scan of mitú social profiles show that the network’s main Facebook site is still active, although at the time of this posting, the network’s main Twitter account hasn’t tweeted in 16 hours. The Twitter account for Fierce is still active, having tweeted this on Tuesday afternoon:
Happy birthday to the beautiful slay-all-day QUEEN @JLo ??? pic.twitter.com/49045vngR7
— fiercebymitu (@fiercebymitu) July 24, 2018
The Fierce Facebook page is also active.
A letter from Acevedo was also published in The Wrap story. It begins as follows:
Dear mitú familia,
After 7 years at mitú, the time has come for me to shift my role. Effective immediately, my employee status will change as I will be transitioning out of my day-to-day President role, but you will continue to see me in the office participating both as an active founder and a fully engaged board member and champion of the company and each of you.
Please know this is fully my decision that I had communicated in writing to the board on June 14th of last year, but I was asked to stay until we closed our Series D funding.
As many of you know, I have my own deeply personal and professional heartfelt dreams that I’ve been wanting to explore for a while and with the horrifying state of our country, I feel the responsibility to become a louder voice and a more engaged leader in our community.
