Run away if in Marketing - Anonymous employee Optiv Employee Review

1.0
Aug 16, 2019
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

_Incredibly smart functional teams & individual contributors who could do more if led by qualified, talented and experienced leaders/managers _In Marketing, most in mid-management and individual contributors know more about marketing strategy, best practices, and working, practical expertise than the incompetent CMO. _The overall direction as an SSI is a solid direction _Unlimited PTO is appreciated

Cons

Where to start? _Primary hiring strategy: Nepotism, political and personal gain vs in the best interest of the company or right person/right role. _Upward mobility is fictional. Don’t come here if you want to develop or advance your career. _The CMO can’t find a marketing strategy in the dark with a flashlight and compass. See other Glassdoor reviews on this topic. _The CMO is a wanna-be marketing person in a salesman’s body. He's more concerned about being popular than leading a team of great people. He’s full of smoke and mirrors and will say exactly what you want to hear and likely do it with a conniving wink, off-color joke, and a smile. His charisma masks his marketing inability. _There is no long term marketing vision that sets the department up for pipeline contribution success. As a result, plans and budgets aren’t made until it’s too late, knee-jerk decisions and plan changes happen regularly, which doesn’t allow any program to become successful, nor does it allow for the marketing expertise of the team to shine. _It’s not uncommon for the CMO to agree to a cross-functional, strategic practice campaign or initiative to then, weeks or months later, overturn the program’s “applecart,” likely because it’s not making him look good fast enough. He’ll make plan demands, despite the plan being approved and in flight, with little logic, strategic marketing reason or expertise. Most often then not, he also wants to review every piece of content or write his own and then virtually disappear without a care for the wake he’s left behind. Weeks or months later he comes back - likely not having reviewed or written the content promised - and throws the team under the bus for not getting it done. Not recalling he was the one who overturned the cart, a cart he approved month’s earlier. When the teams try to remind him of his role, he gets defensive and pouts. _The Marketing department’s CMO direct staff is more concerned with being his "favorite" than with the success and development of their teams. This is how they get short term budget based on the whiplash of changes always happening. _The result, the marketing team has lost ~22 people (out of ~73) since June of 2018 (either leaving the company or moving to another department). That’s more than one person a month. _Partner marketing and resulting partner relationships have suffered due to a lack of understanding and planning. _Because there is no strategic vision or plan, there is a constant “emergency” effort for data, reporting decks and/or excel sheets to try and prove quarterly value to the ELT or KKR. Of course, it’s hard to capture value when the strategy, plans, and budgets are not set until well into the year or changed 180-degrees mid-orchestration in order to capture the latest shiny ball. _Lead yourself is the strategy for most (not all) of the functional marketing teams within the larger group. Several on the CMO’s staff have no management skills, let alone leadership skills, and leave their teams with little to no communications, one on ones, staffing, developmental, logistical and/or programmatic support. _Fend for yourself is the professional development strategy. Professional development, specifically in marketing, is literally nonexistent or valued. _HR, the CHRO, Legal and the CEO are all aware of these issues and literally not one thing has been done to help the team. _Marketing morale is at an all-time low with most peers looking to move on.

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Optiv Response
6y
We regret to hear your experience was not positive while at Optiv. Recent organizational changes in Marketing will allow us to be more successful and we are excited for the future with this outstanding team of employees.

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