#leadership

“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Nothing from our fearless leaders as is the status quo. “Execute better!” shouts Ramon. Article after article ripping their leadership to shreds, all sharing the same sentiment of the employees. It silent in the field. Ruderless as PEP spins out of control.

When did you get your last DXC Merit pay increase, mind was in 2022 less than 4% because I had a great people Manager that sadly to say is no longer with DXC

Eisman @18:53: "Wells Fargo has a history of occasionally disappointing and did so once again....Wells Fargo has not grown revenue in multiple quarters. The company seems to have trouble growing its revenue. If you are looking at investing in a large bank, this is not the one I would look at."

Gee, maybe because the c-suite is more focused on 8 hr butt-in-chair productivity metrics than growing revenue?

Why would an employee row for a company that's mostly focused on getting the oarsmen and oarswomen to walk the plank?

https://youtu.be/y45yqiCdfI4

While I don't expect direct/first-hand knowledge shared here, I wanted to see if others have more concrete examples of potential upcoming layoffs beyond just speculation and "I heard..." echo chambers.

As for me, I know of one VP whose calendar is not private. Last week they had an event on their calendar called "[Department] Talent Review". The meeting included a group of VPs, their C-level boss, and someone from HR.

Hard to misinterpret that one...

https://dell.service-now.com/arc?id=arc_catalog_item&sys_id=db988ba7475ade10c2164511516d43e7

Statement of Misalignment and Systemic Risk:
This submission highlights an insurmountable contradiction between Dell Technologies’ publicly stated corporate values, its compliance enforcement, and its executive compensation practices over the 5-year reporting period (FY 2022 through FY 2026).

1. Wealth Disparity: Median Pay vs. Executive Holdings & Dividend Cash Flow

In official SEC filings (DEF 14A), Dell reports a median employee annual compensation of $78,796. Juxtaposing this baseline against executive capital growth and quarterly passive income reveals the extreme magnitude of internal wealth divergence:

Lifetime Earnings vs. 5-Year Capital Growth:
Average Employee Career: Working a full 40-year career at Dell’s median annual wage yields $3.15 Million in gross lifetime earnings.

Jeff Clarke (COO & Vice Chair): Generated an estimated +$592.09 Million in 5-year capital growth (reaching an estimated holding value of ~$825M on grants worth $232.91M at award). This capital gain represents 188 times an average employee's total 40-year career earnings.

William Scannell (Pres., Global Sales): Generated an estimated +$254.92 Million in 5-year capital growth (~$308M total value) — 81 times a median employee's lifetime earnings.

Richard Rothberg (General Counsel) & Yvonne McGill (CFO): Generated 5-year capital gains of +$191.70 Million (61x lifetime earnings) and +$48.16 Million (15x lifetime earnings) respectively.

Passive Dividend Generation: At Dell’s current quarterly dividend rate of $0.63 per share, executive stock holdings yield massive passive quarterly cash flow: Holding ~1.65 million shares and equivalents, Jeff Clarke generates an estimated ~$1.04 Million in cash payouts every single quarter in dividends alone. A single quarterly dividend check to the COO exceeds 13 years of full-time gross wages for an average Dell employee.

1. Performative Values vs. Downsizing as Risk Offloading

Dell frequently cites core principles such as "Winning Together" and "Doing the Right Thing." However, SEC filings confirm that "winning" is an asymmetric outcome reserved exclusively for equity-holding officers, while financial risk is transferred entirely to non-equity-bearing workers:

FY 2024: 13,000 jobs eliminated
FY 2025: 12,000 jobs eliminated
FY 2026: 11,000 jobs eliminated

5-Year Aggregate: 36,000 workforce positions eliminated;a 27% total net reduction.

When strategic missteps occur, executives bear no personal financial consequences—insulating themselves through title reorganizations and board-sanctioned grant adjustments. Instead, 36,000 workers lost their livelihoods while remaining employees absorbed wage compression and operational burnout.

1. Passive Competitive Tracking vs. Structural Wage Suppression

While Dell publicly frames itself as an industry leader, operational pay decisions reveal a pattern of passive competitive tracking when addressing rank-and-file compensation.

During a past corporate all-hands meeting, when executive leadership was questioned regarding wage adjustments to match compounding inflation, the official response was that "no competitors have announced plans for such adjustments, so Dell will not either." Selectively invoking market competition to suppress wage growth while claiming industry leadership represents a clear operational contradiction. Workers are left with below-inflation raises, while their primary "reward" for high performance is simply avoiding the next layoff cycle- maybe.

1. Incentive Misalignment & Compliance Double Standards
   Dell’s compensation model systematically limits wealth accumulation for non-executive employees:

Discretionary Cash Bonuses: Cash bonuses do not compound into base pay over time, are taxed at supplemental income rates, and give managers insufficient budget to retain top technical talent.

Equity Exclusion: While leadership argues that executive stock awards are necessary to incentivize innovation, withholding broad-based equity from rank-and-file workers directly contradicts this logic. If equity drives performance, excluding the workforce actively suppresses long-term value.

Compliance Asymmetry: Dell’s Code of Conduct strictly enforces gift bans and conflict-of-interest policies on frontline workers to eliminate even the "mere appearance of impropriety." Enforcing strict penalties on employees for minor administrative issues while board structures enable executives to extract hundreds of millions of dollars by eliminating 36,000 livelihoods creates an institutional double standard that destroys internal trust.

Action Requested:

This report requests that the Audit Committee, Compliance Officers, and the Compensation Committee of Dell’s Board of Directors:

Formally evaluate the reputational and cultural risks of executive equity structures tied to workforce reductions.

Recognize layoffs as a FAILURE of leadership and punish it accordingly.

Address the structural double standard between frontline compliance enforcement and executive enrichment.

Re-examine employee compensation models to align actual practices with public statements on corporate values and leadership.

CFO is leaving? Is this a bad sign?

SAP Germany has started layoffs by making employees that are born in 1968 and 1969 for semi retirement. Their managers are already asking them to take these offers and leave. As there is no pension grandfathering for these agreements, this is a very bad deal for them. But they will be forced to take it anyway. After HR knows how many are actually leaving and they have figured out the costs, they will start to use the lists from each area for more layoffs. My friends in HR say that the total is expected to be about 10% of the German workforce. More will be shared in Q1 once these lists are finalized. Be good to your managers because they will ultimately decide who will be let go of. L1 from each area is asked to give names corresponding to 10% their workforce. So it is going to be a bloodbath in 2027 and 2028. All of this while SAP is making more and more money every year thanks to its employees. CK retires in 2028 so he wants a big payout from these "savings". I am so mad at the CK fans who keep supporting the board despite all this. If we employees do a good job and our company is not struggling, we should have job security. It's not a big ask. Yet SAP leadership has shown that they do not care about employees. What is worse is that SAP leadership makes more money than average than any other company in Europe and for them it is still not enough. How can we stop this greed?

I get it, you’re rich. Don’t be an a--hole that you cut our comp to fill your paycheck

So I was reading company email last and see another VP is retiring! Man ain’t it ashame, when anyone else retires in the company that’s not an A$$ kisser, no email about there retirement of thank you! AT&T , what you gotta say! Sounds like Walmart for sure

CXO is over and what’s left behind is so toxic. Pods not working. Who even is Wei-Lin and what’s the true purpose or her “playbooks”? Something isn’t adding up.

Can Jonathan save the org or is it too far gone?

I think they'll let us live in suspense for a while, hoping many will quit on their own to escape the stress. It's been done many times by many companies and I'm pretty sure this "leadership" will use the same playbook.

What has happened to the culture in S&T? Teams that should be working together have become each other’s enemies. Instead of collaboration, it feels like constant internal politics, power struggles, and competition for credit.

It almost seems like Athina thrives on this drama rather than putting an end to it. Leaders in India and elsewhere appear to be encouraged to compete and fight against one another instead of working toward common goals.

For eg: Santosh’s Common Services organization seems to have its own agenda, with leaders focused on taking credit rather than recognizing collective contributions. Now, with the new FACES leadership in Dave’s org, there appears to be another round of drama brewing between that team and Santosh’s group.

When did S&T become a place where leaders compete against each other instead of working together? Where protecting territory and claiming credit matter more than delivering results?

PepsiCo used to be about collaboration, respect, and winning together. Now it feels like internal politics are tearing teams apart.

The real question is: Does senior leadership not see what is happening, or has this become the culture they are willing to tolerate?

Dave - dig deeper in your org, listen to ppl. Be careful with the sales force lead.
Santosh- stop playing games under Athina’s pressure
Stephanie- stop saying yes to everything Athina proposes
Jen- your team is falling apart.
Juan- come to work. Ur living room is not a place to work from .
Ashin- you know

It's about time they gutted out all these incompetent "leaders". Place is run by mentally ill 2 faced frauds. It's about time. I hope the executives bank out and cash in. Karma

These overpaid new AVPs, VPs and SVPs needs to be sent out the door. Terrible leadership that just packages up the good work of others and represent it as their own.

Now that the company is in trouble, these bureaucrats pushed out all key talent and replaced them with inexperienced but easy to control lemmings. Time to start with a clean slate. Bring back those key talents that left and restore the business. The brain drain is too intense for minor changes. Go big or just sell the company. All these leadership decisions just shows you that Alex couldn’t care less anyway.

I'm yet to work for a company with more cowardly leadership than this one. Tell us what's going on, for heaven's sake! We're all big boys and girls, we can take it. Being kept in the dark is ten time worse than anything we might find out, whether it's about layoffs or whatever else.

For Stankey and his cronies. The rest of us are sc--wed, though.

I'll happily accept being let go. This company will become an industry joke. Just look at who's pulling all the strings. Can you think of a more inexperienced and talentless person to be in charge of something like this?

Not going to sugarcoat it. Pepsi is not what people think it is behind the scenes. The dysfunction, the decisions from leadership, and the way things are handled make you question why you stay. I’m glad I’m moving on.

Having Pepsi on your resume looks great right now, so take advantage of it while you can. The name carries weight, but once people start seeing what’s really going on behind the scenes, that reputation might not mean what it used to. If you’re already thinking about leaving, start looking now instead of waiting for things to get worse. There are opportunities outside Pepsi, and your experience is worth more than staying somewhere that drains you. Get out while you can.

I have an opportunity to move from IA to BA. How is the overall environment and the leadership team in BA Atlanta office?

Senior leadership has a metric to review every employees’ productivity across LOBs. They review the metric every quarter. RTO is not about sitting in the office, RTO is about delivering in the office.

Kaumil Gajrawala
Analyst, Jefferies LLC Q
Hey, everybody. First of all, Jamie, thank you for all your help over the, I guess, what's now been decades. And
Ramon, a question on the asset base and sort of following on with some of the answers to your questions on one
North America maybe being regional, a focus on agility, a focus on being fast. A lot going on in terms of
innovation and rightsizing. To what degree are you open to the idea of franchising some of these operations on
the beverage side, particularly maybe just from a regional perspective because it feels like many of the intentions
of what you're looking to accomplish, some of could be moved along by pushing sort of a re-franchising initiative.
So curious what you think about that. Thanks.
.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Ramon L. Laguarta
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, PepsiCo, Inc. A
Yeah, listen, we are – Kaumil, as I said, we're going after growth and margin with high speed and a very strong
sense of urgency. We are – at this point, we're open to all the ideas and we appreciate all the perspectives to
create shareholder value. So we'll listen, we'll do what's best for PepsiCo.

https://investor.pepsico.com/docs/default-source/investors/q3-2025/q3-2025-pep_transcript_kza87jr4cih3omqu.pdf

Scuttlebutt is it's an external hire for CISO again. Insanity. Just make JS the CISO and move on ffs. He's been tried twice already and cyber folks speak highly of him. Not sure why we need external when everyone says cyber is high priority and leadership keeps fing around breaking continuity. Unbelievable idiocy if true.

All self entitled a**holes running erratically with their heads cut off… no sense of direction or purpose

I’ve been struggling with two questions. Thoughts?

1) ER was meant to restructure the organization and right size it. Phase 1 was focused on Senior GPs picking their leadership team. How is it a year later that 30ish GPs get reassigned and some to roles where they have no background in what they are leading. When will the Senior GPs get held accountable for lack of delivery, you can’t just keep blaming the next level. You hand picked them!

2) I’m newer to EJ, but LP is explained as ownership but very much feels like just a bond offering. If I owned a part of the company I would also gain in appreciation of the market value of the company. My understanding is only GPs participate in this. So if I accept the LP offer, I give XX,X-X and earn I profit(interest) on it. If after years or decades I want out, I’m returned my principal and no appreciation of the company of those years or decades.

Anyone have insights that I’m missing?

Much of the cisco IT is just ruled by world fuel service folks. A leader comes and brings their folks with him and lays off Cisco folks. And HR doesn’t do anything. What is the credibility . Just PR. They come with their agenda and deciding what’s best for everyone. What’s the track record for that. You didn’t even give interview to get a position. All you have is good father. Nonsense.

If Rich doesn’t survive the counterclaim, who will replace him as CEO ?

1. Chris Bailey
2. Jamie Zendel
3. Jason D’Angelo
4. Ken Young
5. Shannon Morronnarity
6. McKinsey & Co.
7. ACN Chatbot

Stephanie Ferris, CEO of FIS, makes about $21–23 million a year (mostly in stock). Since she took over, the company has cut roughly 25,000 jobs—from about 69,000 down to 44,000. The stock has fallen more than 50% from recent highs.The people still there who manage client relationships and keep the systems running are the ones generating the revenue. Upper management is pure overhead. Yet the cuts keep hitting the long-time employees who actually take care of clients, while those who remain say morale is low and they’re stretched thin.If her pay were cut to one-third, the roughly $15 million saved could hire several hundred software developers, business analysts, or QA testers—people who actually do the work and serve clients.Taking care of clients stabilizes relationships and can grow income. Experienced people who know the systems and solve problems quickly make clients more likely to stay and expand. Cutting those roles while protecting high executive pay does the opposite.

Left DXC Australia in 2021 when “transformation” mostly meant keeping legacy accounts on life support — now that the CEO’s bailed, has anything actually changed or is it still the same PowerPoint fantasy?

Given the massive wave of VP-to-Director demotions and VP layoffs over the last two years, how are there still VPs in Wealth and Brokerage managing micro-teams? It feels like we have highly paid executives whose only job is to turn their team's hard work into slide decks and showcase it to upper management. Is there a strategic reason for this, or is it just leftover org bloat? What is the actual business justification for keeping this top-heavy structure?

After all, I always considered Larry to be the king of vaporware sales. He's been doing that since writing DB software for his very first government customers. Nobody has more experience selling vapor than Larry and yet, somehow Scam's pitch passed the smell test. Go figure.

The guy has to be slipping cognitively. He decides to become a very late entry into an already over-inflated, over-hyped, non-proven, questionable market. Now here we are 12 months later and the economic forces are all finally converging against him - all because of his own poor judgement.

RIP Oracle.
RIP Larry.

Constant changes to processes, technologies, and rules as a result of short sighted leaders.

One executive told us to have a “challenger mindset.” Now employees are challenging leadership, and apparently this wasn’t what they had in mind.

Suddenly, we’re whiners. It’s all speculation. This place is unhealthy. Stop reading. Stop posting.

Sure, there are trolls. There are rumors. Nobody has to believe everything here. We’re adults. We can ask questions, compare information, and decide what holds up. A bad post doesn’t erase someone else’s experience.

Read what people are actually saying. There are accounts of people afraid to answer eNPS honestly. People who say they raised concerns and nothing changed. A commenter identifying themselves as an executive director described being mistreated by a leader above them. Having a title doesn’t necessarily protect you from this culture.

How many chances does a leader get to improve while everyone underneath them is expected to absorb the damage? Where is that same patience for employees? People shouldn’t have to spend their careers waiting for someone above them to learn how to treat them.

And if you’re a leader here complaining that employees are speaking up, who’s actually whining? Address what they’re describing instead of demanding they stop describing it.

To those saying, “That leader was always good to me” maybe they were. That doesn’t make everyone else wrong. It’s uncomfortable to question someone you’ve defended for years. But people don’t owe you silence so you can keep believing the best about them.

For some people, this is the first place they’ve said what happened and heard, “You weren’t the only one.” That matters. Don’t let anyone shame you out of it.

Keep sharing what you personally know. Be clear about what’s firsthand and what you’ve heard. Protect your privacy and other people’s. Assume leaders may be reading and remember that their discomfort doesn’t make your experience less relevant.

If you need a break from this board, take one. That’s your choice. But taking care of yourself and speaking up aren’t opposites. We want this company to change. That means listening, addressing the behavior, and replacing leaders who keep getting chances while the people beneath them keep paying for it.

Employees have spent years being told to adjust. It’s time leadership did some adjusting.

https://youtu.be/Xv8FBjo1Y8I?si=ZfRZ4rgFmK4_g9vC

Are there several upstream ppl now in downstream like I see so many senior downstream ppl in Upstream roles. Is the reverse also true?

When Shell was still Dutch it wasn’t perfect either. People always looked out for their own but the culture was better: less brutal when it came to reorgs, more care for people and a lot more innovation and entrepreneurship instead of just cutting cost. Shell has definitely gotten worse since the center of gravity shifted from the Netherlands to London. Looking back though, hiring your own isn’t a Dutch trait. Everyone does it, with India now leading the pack.

Netflix has replaced its Chief Content Officer, Bela Bajaria, following a significant workforce reduction. Bajaria, who had been with the company for a decade, will be succeeded by former Disney executive Peter Rice. This executive change occurs as Netflix faces investor pressure to produce more hit content and increase viewer engagement. The company's stock has seen a notable decline over the past year. These moves signal a strategic shift in response to market challenges and competition.

Los Angeles, California

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2026-10-15/netflix-bela-bajaria-leaves-company-after-major-layoffs

does anyone know with any certainty if we'll see layoffs before the ceo office hours on the 27th, given the email today about the reduction of our exec leadership and change in reporting structure for exec ed and degree?

Like a human ping pong ball: AT&T, RingCentral, and T-Mobile, continues to bounce around in short time.

Funny to see all these external C-Suite people come from A&TT and now they churn out amongst themselves.

He should start with himself!!!