Pros
- Really fun environment with a down to earth culture. Fun offsites and company events. - If you can carve out a silo away from Amsterdam leadership (rare), you can do and accomplish a lot! - Leadership in NY is generally strong.
Cons
- Any potential that the firm has is squashed by leadership in Amsterdam. Instead of hiring people they can trust and get out of the way of, they invest much of their time in scrutinizing and criticizing (at literally every level of the org) without offering solutions or setting people and initiatives up for success. - I saw many high potential managers tread water because of this. Often leadership did not directly shoot down suggestions, but went into unproductive rounds of feedback that led nowhere. Initiatives ultimately fizzled without closure, justification, or any generative reflection. Such a waste of time and talent. - There's little transparency about mission, vision and strategy. If you're not in the room when it's discussed, you don't know what leaders are thinking about and the ambitions the org is supposed to share and work toward as a collective. When strategy was discussed, it was highly technical and inaccessible to non-trading or technology functions. In other words, it was extremely difficult to align one's work with leadership's objectives, and ultimately to be successful or have any meaningful impact on the business. At least for non-trading functions. - Some (but not all) of Amsterdam's leadership and sr management team is not only dysfunctional from a business perspective, but also unprofessional and unpleasant to interact with. - There's a high tolerance for toxicity; very apprehensive to exit people with behavioral issues