Kris Duggan stepped down as chief executive officer of BetterWorks in July 2017 after a former employee filed a lawsuit accusing him and the company of sexual harassment, assault and maintaining a hostile work environment.
BetterWorks, an enterprise software company based in Redwood City, California, announced that Duggan would transition from CEO to president while the board searched for a new chief executive. During that search, he continued serving as acting CEO. Duggan had co-founded BetterWorks in 2013.
The lawsuit was filed in San Francisco Superior Court by former BetterWorks employee Beatrice Kim. Kim alleged that Duggan made unwanted physical and sexual advances toward her during an offsite company retreat in 2016. According to the complaint, Duggan allegedly entered a cabin where Kim was staying, touched her legs and continued despite her objections until another employee intervened.
The lawsuit also accused other BetterWorks managers of contributing to a hostile workplace and failing to adequately respond after Kim reported the alleged conduct. BetterWorks and Kris Duggan disputed many of the allegations at the time.
Duggan’s decision to step down came shortly after the lawsuit became public. The company did not initially identify the litigation as the reason for the leadership change, although reporting at the time connected the decision directly to the controversy.
About Kris Duggan
Kris Duggan is an entrepreneur, investor and technology executive with a career focused primarily on enterprise software and technology startups.
Before BetterWorks, Duggan held senior sales roles at WebEx and later became involved with several Silicon Valley technology companies. He co-founded Badgeville in 2010, a software company focused on gamification and employee and customer engagement. He served as Badgeville’s founding CEO before later co-founding BetterWorks.
BetterWorks was created as a performance-management platform designed to help companies establish goals, measure employee progress and manage organizational performance. The company raised venture funding from investors including Kleiner Perkins and Emergence Capital and worked with large enterprise customers.
Duggan’s educational background includes studies at the University of California system and an MBA in information technology from the University of California, Irvine. His broader career has also included advisory, investment and entrepreneurial activities involving enterprise software companies.
The 2017 lawsuit and resulting leadership change represented a major turning point in Kris Duggan’s tenure at BetterWorks. He stepped down as CEO that July and later left the company’s board.