Left-wing hedge fund DE Shaw has fired its DEI chief following an exposé by The Post on its woke HR policies — an exclusive report that staffers feared placed the firm squarely in the sights of President Trump.
Maja Hazell — who has led Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the wildly profitable financial firm for the past four years — saw her full-time position eliminated last week by chief operating officer Eddie Fishman, sources close to the situation told The Post.
Sources said the company’s top brass plan to offer Hazell some part-time consulting as part of her exit deal. Staffers who reported directly to Hazell will be reassigned to new roles inside the company as DE Shaw moves to effectively shut down its DEI unit, sources said.
Reached by The Post on Wednesday, Hazell denied she was leaving DE Shaw, but did not respond to questions about whether she was moving to a part-time consultant gig with the company.
DE Shaw, which has more than $70 billion of assets under management, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Hazell’s exit follows The Post’s exclusive reporting on how rank-and-file at the firm — founded by billionaire and major Democrat party donor David E. Shaw — believed that its refusal to ditch its DEI stance could spark a probe from the current administration.
“The firm was concerned about being seen as too DEI, and this was the next step,” a source briefed on the situation told The Post.
Hazell joined DE Shaw as managing director for diversity, equality, and inclusion in October 2021, from the top law firm White and Case, where the Yale and Georgetown alum served as its global head of diversity and inclusion, according to her LinkedIn profile that contains her pronouns — she/her — in her bio.
“This is a clear sign that DE Shaw executives are still extremely worried about scrutiny from the administration,” added another insider. “The company was a poster child for DEI, but is now using their token hire as a sacrificial lamb. Whether others on Wall Street will follow suit is an open question.”
Last month, The Post reported that an ex-DE Shaw executive asked New York’s highest court to review work contracts at the hedge fund — claiming that they are being used to “silence” employees about alleged wrongdoing after they leave the firm.
Founder David E. Shaw, 74, previously helped bankroll the presidential campaigns of Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton
President Trump signed an executive order in January of this year that took aim at companies that still practiced DEI.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, who runs the Department of Justice, then issued a memo the following month that vowed “measures to encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination.”
The New York-based powerhouse saw its algorithm-driven trades make it the most profitable hedge fund in 2024, raking in $11.1 billion for investors, according to Institutional Investor magazine.
Its alumni include Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and his ex-wife, Mackenzie Scott, as well as Lawrence Summers, who served as Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton and as director of Barack Obama’s National Economic Council.
The Post’s scoop from last month detailed how the firm had scrubbed mentions of its woke hiring policies on its website.
That was despite insiders saying that DE Shaw’s top brass remained committed internally to those very policies that critics say undermine meritocracy in the workplace.
The hedge fund giant had initially left details of its “inclusive” Bridge internship online. The program was set up in 2016 for “historically underrepresented” groups in finance.
But when a Post reporter approached a spokesperson for comment in August, the bizarre job placement schemes mysteriously disappeared from the company’s website.
According to an archived version of DE Shaw’s Campus website — an online recruitment portal — the firm created three programs aimed at diverse recruitment.
Its “Discovery” program was “designed for students who self-identify as women”, while “Momentum” was aimed at those “who self-identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ community
DE Shaw also had a program called “Latitude,” which was “for students who self-identify as Native American or Alaska Native, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, or Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander.”
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