Review:
This is not a short review, by any means. But it’s accurate and should give you a good picture of my employer, so please read the whole thing if you are contemplating a career here.
When I joined D&B several years ago, this was a place that yearned for innovation – through new revenue generating ideas and major overhauls to the data supply chain. However, we are an impatient company, and due to lack of top-line growth, we axed our prior CEO and brought in a hip, “modern”, CEO from the digital space that was going to completely disrupt our culture and strategy. With his new set of C-level execs, we ushered in a focused strategy towards growth and a sexy new brand while removing some of the stuffy bureaucratic leadership levels that existed when I joined.
With all the change, came the layoffs. Some were expected and removed the redundancy that the original regime brought on. But at the same time, we appointed a new COO, who was terrible and had no idea how to inspire people, let alone all of sales and product. We made some questionable acquisitions, burning through our cash and integrating management from all these firms into our own. There was an assumption that our culture would mimic that of a start-up through these acquisitions. The opposite happened! Instead of being lean and agile, we increased our operating expenses. And what did we spend on? T&E! Workshops upon workshops, sending 10 people to events when you only needed 3, or people traveling all over the world for one-hour meetings when a WebEx would suffice.
The wannabes emerged with lots of strategy decks, but no results. And even worse, they took credit for whichever few successes the company actually did have. D&B thought they were outside-in, but in reality, it was inside-out since the wannabes actually didn’t have any real substantial work experience outside of D&B. We had people that could do whatever they wanted because they had their “advocates”. Basically, if you were a former chief of staff or had a good relationship with a top 5 exec, you were set for your D&B life. No accountability required! So as this vicious cycle continued, the legends in their own minds continued spending and hiring/promoting wrong talent, while the worker bees and revenue-generators were let go over time.
So where are we now? We just annihilated the rest of the most recent C-level regime, including the CEO for (surprise, surprise) lack of growth, the COO for his extracurriculars, and the CMO because he didn’t really know marketing. But it’s OK, because we’re 175 years old and we’re going to keep on trucking.
Other Cons:
We created our own corporate microcosm where you could do absolutely nothing of value, but still feel like an MVP. Most of these folks wouldn’t last 3 months in NYC or SF firms. In the summers, we sometimes had a shortage of desks due to all the interns. Speaking of which, we brought in 15-20 high school summer interns, which we basically babysat for 6 weeks. The college interns were essentially the sons and daughters of the execs, so none of them ended up sticking around post-graduation. Nepotism is huge at D&B, so if you’re related to an exec or one of their EA’s, you’re set!
