On October 1, I resigned from Automattic after leading the People (Human Resources) function for 13 years and 11 months.

I am grateful for the relationships that I built while at Automattic – with Automatticians, with WordPress community members, with True Ventures colleagues (an investor in Automattic), and with attendees at conferences where I spoke on behalf of Automattic. My life is so much richer because of these relationships.

I am grateful for the work that I was privileged to do over the time I was at Automattic – setting up employment entities in new countries, hiring and building out the most amazing People team, supporting our small but mighty Learn team, creating policies there were supportive of Automatticians as we grew from a company of 50 individuals to over 2,000. I learned so much from my colleagues, and will miss them dearly.

So why did I leave? Recently Matt invited Automatticians who weren’t aligned with his interactions with WP Engine to leave the company. He asked me to model out a severance package that would financially support folks who chose to leave. At the same time, I had just learned of the destruction Hurricane Helene had wrought on my beloved home town of Asheville, NC (I was out of town for work when it struck, and have not returned home yet). I am still grieving the loss of my mother from earlier this year, in addition to continuing to grieve the loss of my father. As much as I knew I would grieve the loss of working with my phenomenal team (and I do), I also knew that it would not bring me joy to focus on a dispute between two tech companies. I wish Automattic and my colleagues the best, and hope that a resolution comes soon.

I feel called to support my beloved community and help with rebuilding and relief efforts. It’s been a long time (30 years???) since I didn’t work on a computer for hours each day. I look forward to the hard work that will likely bring callouses. I look forward to building something with my hands. A new chapter begins…