Career Progression, continued - The third way to excel is, unfortunately, through nepotism. Nepotism is an uninspiring fact of life at Rokt. Examples include the CEO’s wife initially working for Rokt as a consultant and being promoted to a C-level role in half a year; the former CMO who moved back to Australia and retained his C-level seat through a ceremonial “Chief Culture Officer” role (keep in mind we did not have an HR department); friends of the CEO returning from multiple year hiatuses to assume senior leadership roles; the list is endless.
Other tidbits. Managers nominate employees for promotion and the CEO personally approves every single one. If you have a manager that advocates for you, your progression will happen much quicker. Those who are quiet are not fed; you need to market your successes.
Leadership - Rokt managers with EQ are few and far between. As others mentioned, most excelled as individual contributors and were promoted into the role. Most have no business being managers. They operate like overlords rather than managers. They lead through public intimidation and reprimands; squeeze every drop of sweat from those they manage; rarely are they helpful, rarely do they roll their sleeves up and lead by example. Your work will instead be nitpicked; your manager will embarrass you for something as benign as the layout of your client email. Going above and beyond is the expectation. You are pressured to achieve the impossible regardless of circumstance; citing elements out of your control is seen as an excuse (e.g., your client is going bankrupt and cut all marketing spend; a pandemic tanking the economy; etc.) Morale is low and you will rarely feel appreciated. New employees are thrown into the deep end to sink or swim. During the first 6 months, employees who don’t go above and beyond will barely know anything due to the poor onboarding process. Nonstop pressure and anxiety to deliver results. Depending on who your manager is, you will be made to feel incompetent and one mistake away from being on a performance improvement plan.
Some of these managers are extremely amiable when business hours end, which makes sense when you consider the top-down effects of the CEO’s behavior. Working under the CEO’s pressure will cause the weaker-willed leaders to abandon their dignity and turn into callous human beings in the name of delivering results - it has happened to the kindest of people. Every person I spoke to in the CEO’s circle does not have anything positive to say regarding his management style. He is stubborn, intimidating, controlling and capricious. He admitted some of this himself, preferring instead to euphemistically refer to his behavior as “direct.” I witnessed him publicly denigrate his data scientists regarding a formula (the CEO is an MBA major); shortly after he was proven wrong and reluctantly retracted his position. He once derailed an All Hands meeting, debating the Chief Legal Officer for 20 minutes regarding his interpretation of GDPR. The CEO rarely delegates, does not trust and allow his leaders to lead. He personally dictates many sweeping changes, changing his position on a whim and forcing his leaders to pivot and carry out his wishes. He undercut and reversed an SVP’s decision to grant the company a WFH day two hours before we were set to leave due to his personal aversions to WFH. It is known across the office that mostly “yes men” survive in leadership positions. That is understandable once you understand his personality. Consider his C-level team, which one reviewer accurately compared to Trump’s cabinet. I can count on two hands the number of SVPs and C-level executives who were hired and subsequently fired after mere months. The company’s existential concern will be the way it continues to treat its people, and until leadership, specifically the CEO himself, self-reflects and adjusts his toxic behavior, or the board intervenes to remove him a la the former CEO of Away, it will be difficult hiring and retaining the talent they need to grow the company.
Culture, continued - I was shocked to learn that Rokt was sued for sexual harassment under Title VII and subsequently settled. The lawsuit implicated the co-founder and the former CRO as the offenders. The CRO left shortly after. The co-founder left and returned to Rokt a year later, around the time of the settlement. Shockingly, the CEO himself was also named in the lawsuit. He was accused of fostering the environment. The lawsuit is public and can be accessed by simply googling “Rokt sexual harassment”. Read it and make your own judgment.
