UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON
AT SEATTLE
JUSTIN FRANKS,
Plaintiff,
v.
THE NIELSEN COMPANY (US), LLC;
GRACENOTE, INC.; JOHN DOES 1-10,
Defendants.
No. 3:23-cv-06150
COMPLAINT FOR DAMAGES
JURY DEMAND
FIRST AMENDED COMPLAINT
NOW COMES THE PLAINTIFF, by and through his attorneys, and complains against
Defendants as follows:
JURISDICTION AND VENUE
- This Court has subject-matter jurisdiction over this matter pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§§ 1331 and 1343. This Court has supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s state-law claims
under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a). Venue is proper in the Western District of Washington pursuant to
28 U.S.C. §1391(b) because a substantial part of the events or omissions giving rise to the
claim occurred in this District.
PARTIES
- Defendant The Nielsen Company (US), LLC (“Nielsen”) bills itself as a “global
leader in audience measurement, data and analytics, shaping the future of media.” It operates around the world, including in the state of Washington, and employs tens of thousands of
people.
- Defendant Gracenote, Inc. (“Gracenote”) bills itself as “the world’s leading
entertainment data and technology company” and is one of the Nielsen Company’s
subsidiaries.
- Both Defendants are registered and do business in Washington State.
- Around the time that Plaintiff’s employment was terminated, Nielsen engaged
in several major changes to its corporate structure. Plaintiff believes that other Nielsen-related
entities may have been involved in, or responsible for, various events described herein.
Accordingly, Plaintiff sues these defendants by the fictitious names John Does 1 through 10.
When the true names, involvement, and capacities of these unknown parties are ascertained,
Plaintiff will seek leave to amend this Complaint accordingly.
- Justin Franks (“Plaintiff” or “Franks”) is African American and an experienced
and successful information technology leader with more than two decades of experience
building and leading tech organizations, everywhere from large corporations like Amazon and
Hewlett Packard to fast-growing start-ups. Franks has resided in this judicial district, since
- Prior to 2019, Franks resided in the state of California and continued to perform work for
Nielsen in Washington and California thereafter.
FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS
Nielsen’s Predecessor Hires Franks, Who Successfully Builds Two Key Tech Departments
- In 2015, Franks interviewed for a manager role at Gracenote (which later was
purchased by, and became a division of, Nielsen). Franks was told that Gracenote was looking
for a manager to lead a small (two to three employee) Development Operations (or “DevOps”)
team. Before he was offered the position, Gracenote subjected Franks to a gauntlet of an
interview process: he interviewed with more than a dozen Gracenote employees. Franks
subsequently learned that the interview process was unprecedented. Non-Black managers and higher-level leaders hired around the same time never had to interview with more than a
handful of people.
- After accepting the offer and joining Gracenote as a manager, Franks learned
that Gracenote actually had much bigger plans for his role. Franks was asked to build two new
key IT departments from scratch: DevOps and Cloud. Despite being expected to work at a
much higher level than his manager title and compensation implied, Franks embraced the
challenge enthusiastically. Applying his substantial skills, the lessons he learned from many
years working at tech companies of all sizes, his ability to recruit and motivate talented
employees, and his full energy and effort to the work, Franks successfully completed the
herculean tasks Gracenote assigned to him. Franks not only hired and trained two brand new
teams, but also developed all technologies, processes, cost-controls, reporting, monitoring, and
support related to the teams. During his tenure, his departments’ annual run-rate grew from
$50,000/year to $80,000,000/year.
- By any measure, Franks succeeded in building out the DevOps and Cloud
teams. Franks’s exceptional performance—in building from scratch and successfully leading
two brand-new IT departments, while being compensated at a mere manager level—should
have positioned him on the fast track for promotion and career development.
Despite Franks’s Outstanding Performance, Nielsen Displaces Him in Favor of White Men,
Assigns Him Menial Tasks, and Pushes Him Toward ‘Diversity’-Focused Roles
- In early 2017, Nielsen purchased Gracenote and took over the business,
including the teams Franks built and lead.
- At around the time of the Nielsen-Gracenote merger, in recognition of his
exceptional performance, Nielsen selected Franks to participate in the Nielsen Diverse
Leadership Network. Only 40 Nielsen employees (approximately 1 in 1,000) were selected for
this honor.
- The stated purpose of the Nielsen Diverse Leadership Network was to create a
strong bench of diverse leaders that the business could “tap into” as emerging executives. But,
as Franks subsequently learned, that promise was false—at least as it pertains to talented Black
employees selected for the program. Franks would later learn that Black attrition in the
program was 300% higher than all other groups. In reality, Nielsen used the program and
others like it as diversity window dressing and to placate talented Black employees and give
them the false impression that Nielsen values them and would consider moving them into
positions of real responsibility.
- After the Nielsen-Gracenote merger was completed, Nielsen’s IT leadership
visited Franks and his teams at their Emeryville, California office, to discuss their work. Franks
met with Nielsen Technology leaders Josh Langley, Gene Malloy, and others who reported to
the Nielsen Chief Information Officer (“CIO”). The meeting went well, and Langley invited
Franks back to Nielsen Tech headquarters in Florida to exchange best practices about Cloud
and DevOps with other Nielsen Tech leaders.
- Despite his excellent work building and leading the Cloud and DevOps
departments—excellent work that Nielsen Tech leaders openly acknowledged in writing and
praised Franks for—Nielsen removed him from his role leading those teams and departments.
The Chief Technology Officer (“CTO”) at the time explained that Nielsen wanted to bring in
Alex Linden Levy (white) and Jim Roth (white), to run the departments Franks built. After
being removed from his leadership role, Franks was to report to and assist the CTO with
unspecified “special projects.”
- Nielsen wanted to bring Linden Levy in at a Senior Director level, two levels
above Franks’s manager title. Nielsen recognized the optics of importing a white man to
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