SADA Lays Off 11 Percent Of Workforce: ‘My Heart Is Heavy,’ Says CEO
‘This is something we’ve never done, and it is the most difficult decision we have made as a company,’ says SADA CEO Tony Safoian.
SADA CEO Tony Safoian
SADA is laying off 11 percent of its 950-employee workforce, something the Google Cloud partner superstar has never done before.
“This is something we’ve never done, and it is the most difficult decision we have made as a company,” said Tony Safoian, CEO of Los Angeles-based SADA, on LinkedIn. “My heart is heavy knowing this decision’s immense impact on each departing team member and their families. As the CEO, I’m fully responsible for this day.”
However, it is key to note that SADA has been on a hiring spree over the past 12 months. So much so that, following these layoffs, SADA’s employee head count will still be up 150 percent compared with 12 months ago.
[Related: Oracle Lays Off 201 Employees In California]
SADA Layoffs
SADA’s CEO said his company was “overly optimistic” in 2022 in terms of expanding its employee head count.
“We were simply overly optimistic relative to what the reality of [what the second half of 2022] brought forth,” said Safoian on LinkedIn. “Even after this reduction, our head count has grown 150 percent in the last 12 months.”
SADA is a privately held solution provider and top Google Cloud partner in North America. In fact, SADA won the Google Cloud Sales Partner of the Year award for North America in 2021.
The company has hired hundreds of employees in 2022, including some big-name executives, such as VMware’s former worldwide channel chief, Sandy Hogan, as SADA’s new CRO.
Safoian Champions For Laid-Off Employees
Safoian unveiled SADA’s layoffs on LinkedIn with a post mostly focused on trying to find employment for the former SADA employees.
“To my network, including our customers and partners, if you are in need of talented Customer Success Managers, Technical Account Managers, Data Engineers, Security Engineers, Cloud Infrastructure Engineers, Mobile Developers, Software Engineers, Sales/Pre-Sales Engineers, Solutions Architects, Technical Recruiters, Marketers, Inside Sales Representatives, Account Executives, Program/Project Managers, Commission Analysts, Technical Writers, Executive Business Partners, or Onboarding Specialists please reach out to [email protected],” Safoian wrote.
Safoian’s post had over 1,200 reactions and nearly 100 comments, including dozens of IT executives and recruiters looking to potentially hire some of the former SADA employees.
“We would love to hire any GCP (Google Cloud Platform) Architect who may have been impacted, please DM me,” wrote Shyam Kumar, co-founder and CEO of CloudNuro.AI, responding to Safoian’s post on LinkedIn.
Safoian urged his LinkedIn network to support the SADA employees who were being let go.
“I humbly ask for your support of our SADA alums, in whatever way you can assist, be it an opening within your respective companies or your wider network,” he said. “We are committed to providing the support and resources these talented individuals need as they begin their journey to find their next opportunity.”
SADA did not respond to CRN’s request for comment by press time.
IT Layoffs
SADA joins a growing list of IT companies that are reducing their workforce.
Intel layoffs are expected to be in the hundreds, if not thousands, as the chipmaker plans to cut $3 billion from its budget next year.
“Inclusive in our efforts will be steps to optimize our head count,” said Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger recently during the company’s financial earnings report. “These are difficult decisions affecting our loyal Intel family, but we need to balance increased investment in areas like leadership and technology development, product and capacity in Ohio and Germany with efficiency measures elsewhere as we drive to have best-in-class structures.”
Software giant Microsoft underwent large layoffs over the past several months due to weaker-than-expected Windows license sales for PCs.
Other recent IT layoffs came from software giants Oracle and Salesforce.
One of the largest layoffs in IT is coming from social media giant Meta, which said Wednesday that 11,000 employees, or 13 percent of its workforce, will be let go.