Former Xbox chief operating officer Helen Chiang has challenged reports and online speculation about her departure, denying that she was dismissed for a policy violation. In a LinkedIn post titled “Clarity is Kindness,” she listed several reasons she says did not lead to her leaving the company.
Chiang denied leaking confidential information, joining a competitor, discrimination, bullying, harassment, insider trading, embezzlement or other fraudulent activity. She also said she did not leave because she had been passed over for a more senior role. The role of COO had been established under Xbox CEO Asha Sharma three months earlier.
Chiang did not say explicitly why she left or was dismissed. However, she wrote that she had serious concerns about how standards were applied in her case and believed those concerns deserved to be taken seriously. She also objected to her departure being portrayed as a “Nelson-level scandal,” referring to an internal Microsoft training-video series about a character who gets into corporate trouble.
Shannon Loftis, a former Xbox Game Studios vice president, expressed support for Chiang in a comment on the post. Loftis later criticized Xbox leadership on her own LinkedIn page and called for an investigation into the source of what she described as a false story about Chiang.
Sources: Game Developer.