Christly Flis, who was working with Zoom as its Head of Global Education and Head of Women, has expressed her ‘utter disbelief and shock’ after being laid off by the company which announced on Feb 7 it will lay off approximately 15% of its staff, or around 1,300 employees.

Flis, who would’ve completed eight years with Zoom next week, took to LinkedIn to share her feelings.

“I can’t believe I’m writing this or that this is really happening,” she wrote in the post, and recalled what all she and her team achieved at the San Jose-headquartered firm.

Flis also expressed her solidarity with fellow ‘Zoomies’ who lost jobs, and thanked her clients, partners, friends and colleagues, who, she said, ‘helped created absolutely magic in a world that prefers to believe in a scarcity and fear based mindset.’

Seeking a fresh start, Flis, who is based in Santa Barbara, informed her network she is now on the market for speaking engagements, and to lead their organisations to success, just as she did at Zoom.

Finally, she thanked Founder-CEO Eric Yuan. “Today was a hard day…writing through the tears. I don’t understand. Zoom, I love you Eric S. Yuan (he / him/ his) thank you for your leadership…thank you for building such an incredible platform, and hoping this is not a goodbye but only a temporary shift,” Flis wrote, adding that Zuan knows she would ‘come back in a heartbeat,’ if things changed to make this a possibility.

Yuan, who has taken accountability for the layoffs, but described these as a ‘tough but necessary’ action, will take a significant pay cut, as will members of his executive leadership team. The Chinese-American billionaire will reduce his salary by 98% for the upcoming fiscal year and forego his FY23 corporate bonus. His team, on the other hand, will get their base salaries reduced by 20% for the same period, besides also forfeiting their FY23 corporate bonuses.