It was reported that a fifth of Lazada’s Malaysia staff was laid off, including the country’s chief executive officer and its chief logistics officer during the first week of 2024.
The Edge reported that Lazada’s Singapore branch was also met with sudden layoffs on Jan 3, 2024.
Singapore-based chief customer care officer Brigitte Daubry was among the affected by the layoffs, including other top executives in the company.
It’s also reported that Lazada has let go of all of its chief marketing officers in various countries. LazMall in Vietnam has also been shut down.
Luca Suino, chief commercial officer of Kuala Lumpur-based IT consulting firm Momentum Commerce, shared on LinkedIn on Jan 5 offering to help affected Lazada employees.
He invited those affected by the layoffs to list their former positions and include links to their CVs.
Suino was formerly senior vice president of category management at Lazada and worked in the Malaysia office between October 2017 and February 2021.
Two former employees, Arun Kumar and Gerald Young, have also created a WhatsApp group to help those affected by the layoffs. Both left Lazada in December 2022 and September 2023 respectively.
It started as a WhatsApp group, created by ex-Lazadians Arun Kumar and Gerald Young. Arun was the Head of Search and Recommendations at Lazada, and is now Head of Growth and Strategy at Food Market Hub.
Meanwhile, Gerald is the chief growth officer at airasia Superapp and was previously the VP, Head of Traffic at Lazada.
The Edge reported that Lazada hired some 10,000 employees in six countries – the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore – before the current retrenchment exercise.
Giving a helping hand
Arun told Vulcan Post that he started getting messages from former teammates on the day of the retrenchment exercise, and thus began looking for resources such as a community that the laid-off employees could join.
However, this group didn’t exist yet, so he got in touch with Gerald, who he used to work with, to create it. He initially thought maybe 40 or 50 people would join, but before long, the group had reached the maximum amount of 1,025 members.
Thus, they decided to create a Google Sheet where affected individuals can input their name, country, position, department, a Google Drive to upload their CVs, and more. This grew into a more structured Google Form that linked to the Sheet, as well as a Looker Studio dashboard showcasing all the information.
The sheet was also shared by Luca Suino on LinkedIn.
In a phone call with Vulcan Post, Luca said that his post has acquired over 100,000 impressions, meaning that it is highly visible to not just affected employees but also hiring managers.
Luca shared that Lazada has a huge alumni network, with people in every corner of the industry.
“The camaraderie is still there,” he explained the reasoning for helping.
The objective of the form is to match hiring demand with the huge influx of supply. Based on LinkedIn posts from people at companies like UEM Sunrise Berhad and CIMB, there certainly seems to be demand for the talents.
At the time of writing, the Google Sheet has almost 100 entries. Arun said that additional WhatsApp groups for different nationalities of employees have been created, including Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines.
An offline matchmaking event
Aside from online groups, Luca shared his desire to bring the networking offline. He told Vulcan Post that he would like to arrange for an offline event next week where affected talents and head-hunters can gather.
Likening it to speed-dating, he shared that this can further help with matching demand with supply.
Arun added that many of the affected talents may have been at Lazada for years, and thus out of practice when it comes to networking and interviewing for roles.
Luca clarified that there’s no hard feelings for Lazada, and that all these efforts aren’t made to go against Lazada.
“It’s stuff that happens. They need to do what they need to do,” Luca said about the layoffs.
In Luca’s opinion, the affected employees won’t be out of a job for very long, believing in the talents of his fellow network of former Lazadians.
Arun is more cautious, sharing that the market is rather soft right now, and it depends on the company. That said, he has observed interest from internal recruiters at various companies, including PwC.
For now, the results of Arun, Gerald, and Luca’s efforts are not yet visible, but the quick mobilisation of ex-staffers and recruiters appears to be promising. (Source – the Vulcan post and TRP).
