Roe co-founder and chief development officer Rob Schutz is stepping back from his current role and staying with the digital health company in a consulting role, TechCrunch has learned. The shift comes weeks after Roe laid off 18 percent of its workforce “to control costs, increase organizational efficiency and better align our resources with our current strategy,” leadership wrote in an email obtained by TechCrunch and confirmed by multiple sources. .
“Roe is now at the point where I can confidently pass the baton to the team,” Schutz said in an email to staff today. TechCrunch reached out to Roe for further comment, but had not heard back at the time of publication. Schutz confirmed his departure on LinkedIn, providing a copy of the memo TechCrunch received.
Roe is not the first executive to leave the company following his promotion. In February, Roe announced that it had raised $150 million from existing investors alone, at a $7 billion valuation. A week after the fundraising, TechCrunch learned that Ro COO George Kovios and Ro Pharmacy GM Steve Buck have left the company. In May, Modern Fertility founder Afton Vecheri left Rowe, nearly a year after the company he built with co-founder Carly Lea was sold for north of $225 million. Schutz is the first co-founder to leave the company, while CEO Zacharias Reitano and Chief Product Officer Saman Rahmanian will remain at the business.
Schutz wrote in an email that he will return to day-to-day work after Labor Day, Sept. 5, 2022. “What I’ve come to realize in meditation is that there are so many areas where I can channel my superpowers. Schutz is useful for small scale companies. He also hinted at working with some of Roe’s investors — including FirstMark Capital, General Catalyst, Seven Seven Six, Box Group, Altimeter Capital, Baupost Group, Startup, TQ Ventures and TCG — to advise early-stage startups.
