Chanin Kelly-Rae joined Amazon Web Services as global director of diversity in 2019 and resigned in September 2020, going public in February 2021 during a Recode investigation. She alleged that Amazon’s performance-review process rated Black employees more harshly than white peers, contributing to lower promotion rates. Kelly-Rae also said women were routinely “de-leveled”—offered positions below the level advertised—and that she experienced this herself, an account she said was confirmed by two vice presidents and the hiring manager.
Kelly-Rae further alleged that Amazon operated a culture of fear around workplace criticism, restricted access to diversity data, underfunded her work, and presented workforce statistics in ways that obscured the concentration of Black employees in warehouse roles rather than corporate positions. She said Beth Galetti dismissed her request for more detailed data at Amazon’s first annual diversity summit in January 2020. Amazon denied tolerating discrimination or harassment and said de-leveling was applied regardless of identity. The source describes employee allegations and company responses, not a final court or regulator finding; Kelly-Rae later supported Charlotte Newman, who filed a discrimination and sexual-harassment lawsuit against Amazon.
