Kate Lowry, a former vice president at Insight Partners, is suing the company, alleging disability discrimination, gender discrimination and wrongful termination, according to a lawsuit filed Dec. 30 in San Mateo County, California, seen by TechCrunch.
Insight Partners did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.
Lowry told TechCrunch that she filed the lawsuit because she believes “too many powerful, wealthy people in business are acting like it’s okay to break the law and pay and systematically abuse their employees.”
“It is an oppressive system that is reflected[s] wider trends in society that use fear, intimidation and force to silence and isolate the truth. I’m trying to change that.”
Lowry joined Insight Partners in 2022, having previously worked for Meta, McKinsey & Company and an early-stage startup. The suit alleges that once she was hired, she was assigned to a different supervisor than the one mentioned in her interview.
She claims in the lawsuit that her new supervisor, who was a woman, told her to be “online all the time, including PTO, holidays and weekends” and to respond between “6 a.m. and 11 p.m. daily”.
Lowry says in the suit that this first boss “demanded, collected and fought her,” openly talking about a haze that would be “longer-lasting and more intense” than other men reported.
Some comments the supervisor allegedly made, according to the lawsuit, include “you’re incompetent, shut up and take notes” and “you have to obey me like a dog, do what I say whenever I say it, without speaking.” Lowry also claims her supervisor assigned her “unnecessary tasks” and limited her ability to participate in calls while allowing less experienced male colleagues to do so. Instead, Lowry, he claims, was relegated to “administrative duties such as note-taking and cataloguing.”
Techcrunch event
San Francisco
|
13-15 October 2026
Lowry said she became increasingly ill because of the work environment and that her doctor advised her to take medical leave, which she was granted and took from February to July 2023.
When she returned to work, she was placed on a new team and, according to the lawsuit, the head of human resources told her that “if she didn’t like the new team, she would be fired.”
In September 2023, Lowry said she suffered a concussion and took another medical leave and returned to work near the end of 2024. Due to some layoffs, she was placed under the supervision of a new person, where Lowry said her poor treatment continued. It also claims that in 2024, its compensation was about 30% below market.
By April 2025, she claims she was told her compensation would be cut. In May 2025, through her lawyers, Lowry wrote to Insight about her alleged treatment by the company. A week later, the company stopped working, the suit says.
The lawsuit echoes Ellen Pao’s 2012 lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins, which alleged discrimination and retaliation. This suit offered what was, at the time, a rare glimpse into how female partners felt they were treated in venture capital. Although Pao lost that suit, it sent waves through the industry and other women continued to sue large technology companies.
