A woman is suing a space robotics startup company, alleging she was wrongfully fired from her business development position in 2023 because of her gender and for being a whistleblower for reporting and refusing to take part in some of the company’s alleged unlawful conduct.
Keiko Nakamura-Messenger’s Torrance Superior Court lawsuit allegations against GITAI USA Inc. include wrongful termination, whistleblower retaliation, age and gender discrimination and harassment and both intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress. She seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages in the suit brought April 8.
“Unfortunately, during the time that plaintiff worked at defendants’ Japanese male-dominated U.S. company, she was the victim of age, sex and national origin discrimination (as well as) harassment,” the suit states. “The hostile work environment that plaintiff was subjected to included ageist and sexually suggestive comments, unequal pay, unjustified micromanagement and stripping away of essential duties by a male CEO and other senior managers.”
A Gitai representative could not be immediately reached for comment.
Nakamura-Messenger, 50, is Japanese-American and was hired in April 2022 as GITAI’s business development director. She was responsible for assisting the management team in developing business plans, helping pursue U.S. government funding, taking part in technical and programmatic reviews required by NASA and others and writing news releases for the media. Nakamura-Messenger previously worked for NASA.
All of the plaintiff’s GITAI co-workers were male and she was the company’s first U.S. employee and the first woman director, according to her suit, which further states she used her 20 years of experience at NASA to bring verifiable results, including the first and only sales in the U.S. in GITAI’s first year in the U.S. industry.
Nakamura-Messenger also provided connections at NASA and major aerospace companies, including Northrop Grumman and Blue Origin, that no one else in the company had achieved, the suit further states.
Two days after being hired, Nakamura-Messenger and two GITAI executives went to the National Space Symposium when the CEO said he had been on the Tinder dating app “constantly searching for a blonde, brunette, young or old, doesn’t matter, as long as they are women who can give me … U.S. citizenship, I will swipe my finger to the right on Tinder,” comments that made the plaintiff uncomfortable because she believed the CEO treated women as objects, the suit states.
During a trip the next month to GITAI’s Tokyo headquarters, Nakamura-Messenger was “subjected to relentless comments and conduct of a sexually harassing nature,” and “treated like a secretary and butler and had to be at the beck and call” of the CEO and another executive while being told to serve lunch and take meeting notes, the suit alleges.
“These basic tasks were clearly unlike the job description for business development director that plaintiff agreed upon when she was hired,” according to the suit, which further alleges that Nakamura-Messenger was “scolded and berated” by the CEO and the second executive throughout the trip while her male colleagues “were treated with the utmost respect.”
Nakamura attended a January 2023 trip to Washington D.C. to meet with U.S. government agencies, including the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the suit states.
“Shockingly, during these meetings with the U.S. government agencies, the CEO blatantly lied, stating that GITAI was extremely successful being Blue Origin’s robotic partner and GITAI (had) been selling them robotic hardware,” according to the suit, which further states that the CEO glared at her and mouthed an epithet in Japanese toward her as she was giving a business pitch.
In March 2023, two months after a Washington, D.C. event where Nakamura-Messenger refused to lie to the U.S. government and potential customers about GITAI’s alleged business activities, the plaintiff was given a poor performance evaluation that did not acknowledge her many achievements.
Many GITAI male employees received bonus and promotions, but Nakamura-Messenger was denied an advancement as well as an inflation adjustment to her salary, leading her to believe she was underpaid because of her gender before she was ultimately fired last June, leaving her with severe emotional distress, according to her suit.