TED / Kaori Anne
Paloma Castro Martínez joined Lime in 2018 from French luxury house LVMH.
- Lime has lost yet another executive amid a year marked by C-suite shakeups.
- Paloma Castro Martinez, formerly the startup's head of international communications, left this month, according to her LinkedIn profile. She joined the company during its massive expansion of 2018.
- Other departures this year have included Lime's founding CEO, other communications managers, and human resources leaders.
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A high-profile communications executive at Lime, brought on in 2018 amid a massive expansion by the electric scooter startup, has departed the company.
Paloma Castro Martinez is no longer Lime's head of international communications according to her LinkedIn profile, marking yet another departure at in a year that's been market by executive turnover for the firm.
Martinez did not immediately respond to a request for comment about her departure. Lime did not respond to a request for comment.
In May, founder and former CEO Toby Sun stepped down from his post, relinquishing control to cofounder Brad Bao. Also lost amid the C-suite shakeup were head of communications Jack Song, human resources chief Nancy Lee, and a reported other two policy executives.
Earlier in 2019, the company lost a finance executive and another human-resources chief.
With Martinez aboard since November 2018, Lime has expanded quickly into new European markets. At the time of her hire from the French luxury powerhouse LVMH, she pointed to her background as a seasoned executive - and not a Silicon Valley veteran - as key to her arsenal to help fuel that growth, in an interview with Business Insider.
It's not clear where Martinez may be headed next. Her LinkedIn profile lists her as a managing partner at Darwin Associates, with which she was also working during her entire tenure at Lime, according to the listed dates.
In July, Lime successfully raised a fifth round of venture-capital funding, valuing the company at more than $2 billion, according to PitchBook data. As recently as August, the company was reported to be soliciting yet another round, with backers possibly including SoftBank.
However, amid a spate of disappointing initial public offerings and the epic implosion of the coworking company WeWork this year, it's not clear if the Japanese mega-fund will be as keen on investing in money-losing startups going forward.
Lime has said it expects to be profitable by an adjusted metric as soon as 2020, The Wall Street Journal reported.
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