#leadership

Sarah London was never qualified to run a publicly traded company, let alone one of such prominence. She got the position through a combination of family legacy, connections, and luck (passing of the former CEO). It is evident through recent events that she had no strategy to weather the current social, political, and technological environment. She has put employees out of work, destroyed the legacy of a great company and moreover is harming its patients, the American people. The Board should step in and fire her immediately. There are much better leaders out there.

https://www.fastcompany.com/91391672/remote-work-isnt-the-problem-mediocre-leadership-is-work-from-home-bad-leadersh

Indians occupied most of top management positions. Root cause of Intel’s failure.

Good luck to Nvidia, to be converted to India. It is not far from corruption.

Another brilliant move from Helen, our CFO. Never a thought for the employees or the long term growth of the company but just endless rounds of redundancies, reorganisations, cost cutting, and not this: scrapping company mobile phones and instead offering staff a measly £6-8 per paycheck. What a farce - is this how you value your employees?

Back in May, she pocketed 2-3M in retention options for absolutely no reason. Meanwhile rest of us are left to deal with the fallout of her decisions. Frankly, it’s poetic justice that’s she is now underwater with those options give the damage she caused.

This decline began the moment she joined the company. She wrecked the sales organization with her favorites in bloody sales leaders, and now dragging down the entire company. 40yrs of culture undone in no time at all with her. Her tenure as CFO will be remembered as a failure, plain and simple.

And as for the CIO - what a disappointment to blindly follow her lead and send out that message about axing mobile coverage. Shame on you.

Hoping Sanoke can turn things around before it’s too late.

Any clue? I doubt it changes what’s coming at the end of October, but it’d still be good to know. Honestly, I’m starting to feel like leadership doesn’t have a real plan and is just scrambling to prop up the stock. If that’s true, it’s not going to end well for us.

It took me a while to find a decent alternative. It’s not better than Dell when it comes to pay and benefits, but the relief is incredible. My manager is actually competent, communicates like a normal human, and most importantly, runs the team efficiently. I haven’t had to stay late once, and there’s no layoff drama hanging over us (yet). Look for something new for the sake of your sanity. The job market is tough, but there are always options.

There is so much talent wasted because they have managers who are unqualified or lack basic skills. Fidelity could be a great place to work again, but it would take too much time and money to fix the broken management system.

And we don’t have time or money to spend on development.

So many dissatisfied employees comment here.
Why don’t they leave F5?
Can’t find another job? Hmm.

So many former employees comment here.
Why are they wasting their time?
Can’t find another job? Hmm.

Seems like the answers are obvious.

Dose of reality for those newer to working.
No job or company is perfect. Many are far from it.
F5 isn’t perfect. But it’s a paycheck. It’s decent benefits.
Bad mouth leadership until you are blue in the face, it won’t change anything.
So take a deep breath.
Take another deep breath.
Stop wasting your time on things outside your control.
The commenting isn’t burning calories, or teaching you a new skill, or fixing anything. So why are you continuing to do it?

Get back some free time! Don’t give it to F5!

Quote below not mine. Elevating from another poster. MW, your money can never make you sleep soundly. Know that you garner zero respect from us. And you don’t have the guts to accept any criticism.

“For me, the turning point was when the CEO openly stated, “stop being nice.” That should have been a PR and cultural disaster, no matter how it was framed. In my experience at Chevron, "being nice" meant mentoring juniors, collaborating as a team, and going the extra mile to achieve collective success. It was never an excuse or a way to dodge accountability for KPIs—it was about fostering a supportive, high-performing culture.”

VP-level executives and above were assessed confidentially by the HR department in preparation for the next round of workforce reductions. According to a credible source, the evaluation considered factors such as salary ranges, employee engagement results, documented HR complaints about leadership behavior, and potential organizational liability. Multiple lawsuits tied to leadership actions have already been filed, creating significant financial and reputational risk for the company.

We would like to raise concerns about our department’s recent fast-track hiring of contingent workers—specifically contractors on H-1B visas sourced through "1nf0$y$." Many of these individuals appear to have limited qualifications. While some possess basic knowledge of business analysis, they lack the technological expertise required to perform the core functions of their roles. It’s unclear how they were approved to work at a Fortune 500 company, given the apparent skill gaps. Internal sources suggest that some of these contractors are personal acquaintances of an Indian Executive Director who is married to an American citizen also another Executive Director in the same department may be influencing leadership decisions to favor these hires. There is concern that these individuals could be receiving a commission or financial incentive for each contractor brought onboard.

In a recent meeting, both the Executive Director stated that leadership intends to increase contractor hiring as a cost-saving measure, citing the company’s reluctance to offer benefits to American employees. This strategy seems to conflict with current federal policy, particularly the new Executive Order on H-1B visas.

Under this order, the application fee for H-1B visas has increased from $215 to $100,000 per year, potentially totaling $300,000 for a 3-year term. According to Commerce Secretary Howard L., the intent is to discourage companies from relying on foreign labor and instead invest in training and hiring American workers.

Given this directive, are we as a company prepared to absorb the financial and ethical implications of continuing to hire H-1B contractors under these new terms? We believe this warrants further discussion to ensure our practices align with both federal policy and our company’s values.

#WhistleblowerAlert #EthicsMatter #CorporateAccountability #SpeakUpForIntegrity #ExposeCorruption #WorkplaceTransparency #HoldThemAccountable #ProtectWhistleblowers #LeadershipAccountability #FairHiringNow #H1BPolicy #HireAmerican #ImmigrationEthics #VisaAbuse #ExecutiveOrderCompliance #FederalHiringStandards #HRCompliance #WorkplaceJustice #ContractorOversight #BenefitsForWorkers #StopExploitation, #stopneporism

Are we hiring backfills? These people work on AI. They work with customers. They manage people. People are pulling 10 hour work days.

As we're constrained for CX Summit, we're simultaneously betraying our core contact center customers. We want to operate like a startup but don't hire like startups do: more designers, engineers, managers in the US.

Is leadership even aware?

https://www.reworked.co/information-management/why-opentext-fired-its-ceo-after-13-years-the-end-of-the-shopping-spree/

Another industry professional was more blunt: "My personal opinion is that they only make enough investment to justify their maintenance costs to their legacy customers."

Looks like Rarhul is dust, came in when yhe share price was $24 and left 2 years after leaving the Share price at $13

Absence of organic revenue growth over the past two years suggests it may have to lean into acquisitions to drive its expansion
Earnings per share have contracted by 3.6% annually over the last five years, a headwind for returns as stock prices often echo long-term EPS performance
Underwhelming 1.2% return on capital reflects management’s difficulties in finding profitable growth opportunities, and its falling returns suggest its earlier profit pools are drying up

There’s no plan grounded in the real world, hard work, or long-term sustainability. All leadership seems to see are dollar signs, chasing ideas that are increasingly risky and unrealistic, while leaving real people out of the equation. It’ll be a great party right up until everything comes crashing down, “unexpectedly”.

The exception was Mulally, who could have stayed for as long as he wanted. He made it just shy of 8 years.

Farley couldn't lick the fuzzy hanging from Mulally's junk. So I'm expecting his ouster at any moment.

Sad to see some really strong technical folks pushed out over the years and now it’s starting to show with those remaining burned out juggling the additional responsibilities. A week of meetings and nothing to show but follow up meetings.. Demoralising watching some really good people no longer speaking up on calls anymore as they are fed up an burned out.
Top table need to take responsibility for their actions. JC and AL need to go. Time for fresh visionary leadership and direction with a major clear out overdue.

You can’t call yourself a leader if no one grows when you’re around.

It seems that nobody knows anything except maybe a handful of EVPs and higher. In meetings, mgmt and HR reps can't offer any new information, just repeating the same known facts over and over again. Morale is at all time low and feels like people just pretend to be busy, while in reality not much gets done. Projects and initiatives got identified as at risks, with TBD plans to move forward. Nobody dares to make decisions for the future without knowing what resources will be available to complete the tasks or even if they themselves will be here after Oct. Meanwhile UFC will start in Jan! Seems that everyone is waiting for something to happen and for some new morsel of information, but nobody is able to come up with anything.

Not sure how much longer we can withstand this situation or recover from it after the dust settles in Nov.

Chief Integrated Supply Chain and Services Officer was fired 9/11. Many rumors have circulated as to why. None however involve a live chicken.

Don’t be a wu-s. Do the right thing and be transparent. If there are discussions happening in the upper rooms and you know info the majority of us don’t, come here and spill it. Be anonymous and at least have a shred of humanity, share the tea. You can bootlick your boss in private, but share info freely here. You might be selfish in private, but at least be a decent person here for the sake of your coworkers and help us out.

This man is arrogance personified . Can’t take simple decisions because he doesn’t know what to do. AI group will in most likely hood be merged with DCG and the Si group with new external leaders in place .High time LBT boots this mo--n out.

They can’t all be gone can they?

Where they at?

Another day watching the stock tank. The street must be catching wind of what turmoil exists internally with employees and no clear strategy/leadership. I was Riff'd about 2 weeks ago and know many great employees that took the ERP. Louisville can be considered a "big city" but it's more of a "big community". Word spreads fast when there's this much dissatisfaction. So unfortunate for a company that had promise and a purpose, (not financially driven) many years ago.

Let’s hope this is good news and human oriented changes will begin soon.

How did you do it? What did you do with your laptop? is there anything you wish you had done differently? From my understanding Cisco and NC are "at will", hence no legal requirement for notice.

Spare me the "burning bridges" comments. Cisco is not a bridge I want to keep. I just watched my leadership sc--w over hardworking teammates over and over again. I am DONE.

The company appears to be in a state of decline, with leadership frequently chasing the latest industry trends. Every few months, there’s a shift in direction and new sets of goals, often driven more by buzzwords than by long term strategy. It can be frustrating and sometimes even amusing to watch leadership make decisions based on vendor pitches, despite lacking hands-on experience themselves.

Strategic direction often changes based on which vendor a VP has a relationship with. Microsoft is currently the favored trend, but just a few months ago, it was all about "prompting." These cycles repeat, creating instability.

Benefits are decent, but be cautious getting sick can be expensive. PTO is generous, and pay can be competitive depending on your role and negotiation. However, layoffs happen regularly, roughly every six months, with many roles increasingly offshored to Allstate India, which probably accounts for over 50% of the IT staff.

The company is heavily focused on “cloud” and “AI” at the moment. Overall, I’d rate it an average workplace, it’s a place where you do your job, keep your head down, and hope to stay employed. Tenure doesn’t offer much protection. If your views don’t align with the ever changing corporate vision, you may find yourself out.

If you’re hired, my advice is: agree with leadership, reinforce their ideas, and avoid pushing back, your opinion won’t carry much weight. On the positive side, there are solid opportunities to improve your skills through a strong internal training ecosystem.

So WORTHLESS and his merry band of BOD’s are scheduled to visit Pascagoula next week. Is this where he will announce his retirement and EB named as his replacement? How much do these little trips cost the company? Doesn’t matter because they are saving so much through layoffs, EOI’s and exceptional management decisions.

I just had a conversation with my new boss after getting the new role, and I’m really enjoying it here at Chevron. I recently got promoted, which has been a huge relief, especially since I’m a new dad, definitely makes life a bit easier. However, my boss did mention that I shouldn’t get too comfortable, as the future of HSE and ETC is uncertain. The organization still seems a bit bloated compared to other companies, and there’s talk that HSE and ETC might eventually be absorbed into Ops or FE, or restructured in some way.

I have my MS, and many of my mentors at Chevron, who have all recently retired, have been advising me to start looking at other opportunities. They’re saying that the HSE and ETC leadership roles, like VP, may disappear. While I’m excited about this new position, I can’t help but wonder whether I should start updating my resume now or wait to see how things play out. I’ve also heard that both of the VPs in these areas don’t have the best reputation internally or externally, so I’ve been cautioned to be careful when I start exploring other options.

Would love to hear thoughts from anyone who’s been in a similar situation or has any advice on how to approach this.

Well, the mrns on the 20th floor are at it again. This time sockless Jim has invited everyone to celebrate that the company has survived yet another year of inept leadership, layoffs, and falling share prices. Woohoo!!

They plan to go to NY to celebrate and to take a bunch of others with them. They will party in the city like it’s 2029 and then most likely come back and lay off another 1000 or so to help pay for it, but this makes sense because they can only cut their way to profitability anyway.

Wouldn’t it be poetic justice if they all get run over by a bus while crossing the street to the exchange.

These clowns are worse than Bill Nuti ever was, at least he had the guts to stand in person and deliver the bad news, these cr33ps send out a video or post some bs on the bridge and then hide on the freight elevators. They might take some questions at the next all hands meeting though...something to look forward to I guess.

Can’t wait to see how they spin it though, should provide a lot of laughs!! Go Team.

Has anyone heard anything substantial about a return to the hybrid model? As the new leadership from other companies has been coming to AT&T most of them seem against 5 day RTO. I know that my AVP up to my SVP truly don't care for 5 day RTO.

FYI— it was confirmed by my leadership that the volunteer exit plans and the severance are only applicable to people at her level or higher. I’m a USA which means I don’t qualify. No USA’s will qualify for it. Just proves upper leadership could not give a f-ck less about people at my level.

Think of yourself and families before this company.

Gov? NVidia? Come on BK, we know you read TheLayoff dot com.

Tell us what you think!

CDO, then CDO/CIO, then CDOA/CIO is laid himself off by taking another job. The sad thing is he has taken credit for the work of those who earned their jobs without a friendship with Christa Quarles.

• he did not lead an overhaul of the company's platforms, IT infrastructure, and business applications to improve security and facilitate more efficient operations.
• he was given a fully secure an operational infrastructure. Under his management he lost two very savvy infrastructure leaders along with other managers and ICs who didn't trust his experience or the people he hired from OpenTable.
• we are hosted in AWS and Azure mostly and all the operations were already efficient and secure
• nothing changed regarding how the company used data as the team responsible is very savvy.
• there was nothing to modernize considering AWS, Azure and GCP along with the rest of the SaaS apps the prior CIO and security leader implemented.
• the Senior Director, Global Services left as he didn't trust him nor Christa.
• the CTO had to obtain an updated SOC2 Type 2 after Grant and the CISO let the certification lapse for two years.

In the spirit of cost cutting, why are we still funding extravagant sports and concert boxes for our leaders? A whole crew of junior female managers and their daughters at Toyota Center for today’s concert. I guess us plebes pay while others get the spoils from our fallen colleagues.

From what I understand the Stinky never gets any respect when he goes to those technical events in the US. That’s why he avoids them. He’s pretty much laughed at. These TECHNICAL conferences view AT&T as the most government controlled bi--hes. He’s our CEO for gods sake.

Fontaine said it's important to back startups
that align with IBM's broader goals.
And those goals would be???

https://www.businessinsider.com/ibm-head-ai-vc-5-pillars-she-uses-invest-startup-2025-9

By: Alice Tecotzky
Sep 13, 2025, 4:35 AM CT

• Emily Fontaine, IBM's global head of venture capital, decides which startups to back based on five "pillars."
• Her criteria include strategic fit and market opportunity.
• Fontaine wants to connect with 800 startups this year.

Emily Fontaine engages with VC firms, startups, and portfolio companies every day, she told Business Insider, and she knows what she wants from them.

As IBM's global head of venture capital, Fontaine leads IBM Ventures, which partners with companies working on everything from quantum computing to artificial intelligence to cybersecurity. She said she wants to connect with 800 startups worldwide this year.

"We've got a really good formula for that," Fontaine said on how she decides whether to invest. "Our mission is super clear: accelerate enterprise innovation with emerging technologies that are delivering real business value."

Fontaine said she evaluates investments based on "five key pillars."

Strategic fit

As the head of a corporate ventures arm, Fontaine said it's important to back startups that align with IBM's broader goals.

"We want to back companies with a differentiated vision that's aligned to major trends and IBM's long-term strategy," she told Business Insider.

While once known as a hardware giant, IBM has recently started focusing on AI and hybrid cloud. Fontaine oversees the company's $500 million Enterprise AI fund.

Technology and product

Fontaine's next evaluative pillar focuses on the product itself: "Are these breakthrough solutions? Are they exceptional quantum quality? Is this technology fantastic?"
Market and competition

Beyond considering the actual technology, Fontaine said she thinks about a startup's financial viability, like the total addressable market and "strong tailwinds," or whether industry trends are favorable.

"Is there clear white space for leadership?" she asked, referencing a company's ability to fill a gap in the market.

Team

Fontaine described herself as a collaborative leader. She said she goes to the office as much as possible and encourages her team members to do the same. Twice a week, she blocks out her whole team's calendar for dedicated collaborative time.

The same focus on teamwork applies to the startups she backs, which, for one, need "high-quality founders with deep domain expertise."

"But even more so — as we do not lead deals, we co-invest alongside top-tier VCs — you have to think about who's on the cap table?" Fontaine said. "Is that a cap table you believe in?"

A cap table — or capitalization table — is a document that outlines investors' equity stakes in a startup.

Financial discipline

Ambition is great, but Fontaine said she's also focused on making sure a startup has reasonable financial goals.

"Do they have realistic milestones? Do they have scalable models?" she said.

Ice Berg and his side kick Marne cut a dozen people in procurement this week, then hired another executive to run IT, moved Almost Ded Ned out from Sandipshit because he wasn't bringing any revenue (scapegoat 1). Then gave Ded a BS Innovation title and probably more money.
Heat is turning up after a terrible August and horrible Q3 outlook for Gilly Bean West. But don't worry the new mascot car, Miles Dumpster, in all the communications will keep morale up.

Today was the chopping day at NGS. Many managers. Directors. And lower level people riffed in preparation for JG bid. They cut to the bone marrow on this one. All their experience. Knowledge base and loyalty they got rid of. I hope they don’t get it.

Hi. I’m a fairly new employee joining R&D and I’ll admit I’m a bit shaken by the Denise and Rene news. I guess I’m still kinda figuring out the corporate bs from
Reality but I thought Denise and Rene seemed like they were really loved and big advocates for R&D?? Is that not the case? I thought I was doing right by