Pros
Fairly innovative (at the time) product line/service lines
Cons
Lack of true gender inclusivity in leadership. Some good senior male leadership overall but I experienced a culture where men take regular time off to play golf together with the CEO during workdays while female staff is not invited to participate and left at the office working on tight team deadlines. I had a male staff member who reported to me who regularly left work or didn't show up entirely to work to instead play golf and never notified me as his direct supervisor, that he would not be in. Not a text, calendar notification, or a phone call. He was a long term employee who did not perform well and even had a previous performance improvement plan or PIP on file with HR. HR verbally told me about his PIP during my discussions with them about his current performance and my concern about his current behavior. I documented his behavior which routingly showed a lack of respect for my role as his female superior and was tolerated by my direct supervisor - a V.P. who also participated in these golf outings. I brought up these concerns in a documented and verifiable process to my direct supervisor and then HR including an incident where this same male employee yelled at me in my office during a 1/1 with him and for the entire team outside to hear him yelling at me completely unprovoked. I was simply trying to discuss my concerns about his behavior in a calm fashion. My door was open. Again, no accountability. My 3 month conditional full time employment as a marketing leader was then quickly terminated on a Friday despite me hitting all of my 3-month onboarding goals and performance plan objectives. This was all documented. I was shocked. I was good at my job and loving it. The reason i was given was “because the whole team feels they know more than you Alex.” I had limited B2B marketing management experience which i was honest about from Day 1. I believe marketing is marketing. I have 2 degrees and have worked at some of the top non-profit and for-profit businesses across the US. My marketing experience spans both B2B and B2C environments, giving me the ability to communicate effectively with business decision-makers as well as consumers, donors, patients, and the public. Texas is an at-will employment state but their reason to not continue my employment did not reasonate. This company also heavily relied on an outside male marketing consultant based in another country to dictate the internal team operations and strategy that I was hired to manage and set goals and plan strategy for. I was not given the opportunity to really contribute strategically from the start because when i was interviewed and hired, no one mentioned i would be working alongside this outside marketing consultant who essentially did everything to manage my team as a consultant. This is not a standard best practice business operating model. The consultant was knowledgable and we had a positive working relationship. But it was clear from soon after I started, and learned of this consultant, that my VP favored the consultants knowledge and management role instead of mine. A best practice in any industry is not to allow an external off site consultant working in another country to dictate day to day internal team operations and long term strategy, including setting HR policies and conducting employee evaluations which i witnessed directly during my brief tenure at DATAMARK and documented as well.
