Stunning to see head of sales in America attending all holiday parties for each office. However hardly to see her going client meetings. Shame if we ever see a change in sales after what HS did there for couple of yrs. You get what you get when attention and people in charge doing things based on DEI program and not actual performance.
Head of Americas product of CFO focusing on anything but sales. Fake as F too. Post on LinkedIn pix of zero contribution!
Fds will be an amazing case study in how a board installed an unqualified ceo they can control and ruin a company that has a stellar rep, big growth ops and huge moat
Strategy changes every 6 months. Please add but to start. Plc , sbu. Back to regions. Back to sbu. Data feeds are future , nah. Firm type it is. Back to regions. Wait. Deep sector is the cure. Wait again it’s cloud. No cloud to expensive. Maybe we need sbus. All w dei and lots of linked in holiday messages for whatever
I guess mcgonicle / Abrams experiment w/ the chemist genius has failed. Back to the lab.
SPGI market business was up 6% for FY24 per its earnings yesterday, which were very strong. MCO Analytics growth was up 8% for FY24 per its earnings release today. These segments are like-for-like businesses to FDS, where the FY 24 ASV growth was about 4%. The take-away: slow FDS sales are a company issue, NOT a market issue. Also - Peer group stock price increase for FY24 (per one investment banking pitch book) is a mean of 18% and a median of 21%. FDS’s FY24 stock price increase is ZERO percent. Other firms know how to do top-down sales given sophisticated, experienced and well-connected senior sales people, many of whom are lateral hires. At FDS, well…
Sooner or later time will catch up with all con artists. Will take time but they will be exposed
The Head of Americas Sales is desperate for attention from ELT, constantly managing up, throwing men under bus, and obsessing over land grabbing. Skip level meetings aren't about genuine care but rather about gathering intel on what people are saying.
She can't travel to meet a single client unless it's large global account and only if it in Europe. Who goes all the way to London and skips client meetings but instead spending five days having drinks and breakfast with ex FDSers?
It is easier to list the things she is not good at than to pinpoint what she actually excels at.
And that's you get promoted to MD and ton of cash comp. meanwhile we have hardworking women, results driven leaders like the head of Banking and Corporate who consistently see clients under DM&W.
SVP in sales was only for those who have spent donkey years having drinks with leadership/ HR or caught the fancy of the ex-CRO. Nothing to do with actual performance or contribution to the company.
Particularly for the ex-CRO, being a yes person who agreed with her half baked ideas regardless of the damage they did was a key factor to elevating people to SVP.
As a lateral hire, it is interesting to me that the more senior one is in sales, the less sales/ client influence they create. Do they have longstanding relationships at the executive level? How many of them can you put in front of the C level and expect them to create a positive impression of the company? Ex-CRO could not hold a conversation with a key client over lunch while in presence of 2-3 other people. Same is true for Americas sales leadership which is more focused on land grabbing than actually selling.
Competency is not valued at this firm as much as friendships and/ or likability.
Another week of corporate charades - endless catch ups and skip level meetings. Two dozen employees left wondering if time travel is real. Our pricy Americas sales is as flashy as a discount suit. And our fearless Americas head could barely sell ice to Eskimo. Time to pack up, hit the road and maybe try finance. Shorter hours and still bigger paycheck sponsored by CRO of the year.
What you have in the states is undoubtedly a dire situation, but matters are not much better in EMEA particularly with the head of UK sales. This person is absent from the office the vast majority of time, yet has still been promoted to SVP. Meanwhile others are left to shoulder the workload without adequate support. It would be most welcome to see individual's presence in the office over the next couple of FYs. There is only so much one can blame other LSRs while simultaneously pushing them towards redundancy particularly men.
When will the board stop these bad acquisitions. Another weak one. . I guess changes the narrative on earnings call to avoid talking abt current business
No one mentionin the $246M CASH acquisition alongside not backfillin roles, limited midyr promotion, yr-end increases were embarrassing
Glint = a checkbox to tick for ELT. They are a lost cause, giving zero effs beyond optics.
Save your breath for worthwhile causes.
Glint is not exactly anonymous given one can deduce where the comments are coming from based on teams/ regions/ tenure, etc.
I’d have liked to believe they are taken in the right spirit but that hasn’t been my experience. Overall, HRBP in my group were terrible at being objective. Please be cautious before sharing details that could potentially be attributed to you. I’ve seen HRBP assess them incorrectly and people getting caught in crossfire.
Glint survey is being viewed by HRBPs. HR in sales leverage those comments time to time. Do not add your comments unless you write glorious stuff about them.
When you entertain a clown, you become part of the circus. That’s what happened with Americas Sales Head. Don’t fall into that trap
Glint is usually in early/mid spring yes? Make sure to include all of your comments / sentiment shared here directly in glint if it's how you feel to ensure it can't be ignored.
There is nothing wrong with having men including white men in the workplace. Ultimately success should be based on performance and not gender. However in this case we went too far by prioritizing the hiring and promotion of women while marginalizing or terminating primarily men. This trend was observed by the Head of Americas Sales supported by the HRBP in sales and the former CRO. A lack of performance was noted by the head of sales in Americas and some of her directs but in the end it was the men who bore the consequences by being terminated or demoted.
Dei is officially dead at fds. Look the leadership of liquiditybook acquisition today. 10 white dudes
Wish it was a long weekend. Dealing with another week of "weekly 1-1" with head of sales Americas. Ruining my week before Valentine's Day
Marketing - The undisputed queens of AWA. No clue why there are 100 of them. The head of sales for America can’t sell or meet with clients so marketing hired another remote non selling head of america revenue enablement.
If people in your teams disappearing, now you know where they went.
Marketing is like USAID. Masters of doing everything but their actual jobs. More “gone on holiday indefinitely” than GTM.
Can’t wait for their “Not just The Facts” adverts at 3AM once the Super Bowls long Forgotten!
Another bloated team - cut 75% of that team and you don’t see the difference. Certainly in EMEA
APAC TEAM?
Wait, we have a marketing team? Couldve fooled me...
Meanwhile partnership marketing has no idea who Irwin or any of the partners we acquired are lol … a show of incompetence protected her bestie manager no branding team.
Marketing team has a lot to answer for !
leadership took a nosedive when the ex CRO handpicked an unqualified head of Americas sales - apparently based on a DEI checklist rather than you know --> competence.
meanwhile as layoffs loomed, our visionary Americas leader with exceptional rating, was busy throwing a Nascar hall of fame bash - because nothing says "we care" like celebrating while employees pack their desks. of course, only her favorites got the invite to the Vegas party too.
wouldn't it have been a heartwarming holiday gesture if this exceptional leader had a least picked up the tab for some employees at the last holiday party? but hey, why spend money on morale, when you can spend on self congratulation instead? Amen!
This thing got more views than "Not just the facts short story Oscar films" with 2 views, and head of Americas sales CSR event 0 view at Facebook. Exceeding Rating really comes to play here.
This will hit 10K views until they do something about Americas. Keep sending GLINT survey to identify employees but your best bets for real feedback 1) read them here and 2) look into the mirror not once but twice to face the reality for broken Americas Sales team and leader (not the people).
There is no chance the Lady in charge of organisational effectiveness does something about the situation. In a role she created for herself, with no precedent to how effective she is in it and in lockstep with the sales head of Americas is the best way to describe her position.
People and their morale doesn’t matter at FactSet. Not to her. Neither to her management chain.
That skip-level meeting. What a waste of time. Might use new EAP free mental health program to recover. Only free thing left before CFO cancels that or do layoff to cover the cost of this.
Incompetence is across many of the groups BUT the only toxic place you could possibly imagine is within Americas sales. Not the people but the leader. You get fired o demoted if you are a men (TBA soon). No chance of moving up in this group unless you kiss a-s. Look at the promotions and trends
lady in charge of organizational effectiveness - bet you people would sign a petition for a change if you are honest with your survey. We know you read those as HR commented on that before but take a poll and decide on that the right way.
CRO time to wake up from your nap before joining famous hall of fame
People getting laid off due to restructuring, performance issues is expected in these times. Each round Factset has conducted had its share of issues.
I’ve however felt aghast at the lack of basic courtesy given to employees who have given years/decades to the company. These are your future competitors, clients and investors. If HR and Leadership do not have the civility to do this right, it speaks volumes about the culture of the company.
It separates the companies that walk the talk from those that are glibly greenwashing themselves to be people centric and DE&I champions. Does the credit for this go to Harding? Shan? Snow? Their directs?
Crying on the screen because George Floyd was insensitively ki-led, talking about resilience during Covid and insensitively pulling the rug from under your employees feet without giving them the courtesy of a conversation don’t go together. It highlights the hypocrisy that runs through the ELT.
The views on these posts are more than one sees on FactSet's social media!
The trust deficit in the ELT is not a new phenomena, the sentiment towards them has been dropping consistently the last 2-3 years. Nor are the internal conflicts between engineering, product, sales and specialists unique to FDS.
What’s new is the gross incompetence, negligent management control systems, ill conceived policies and processes, all in a technology company no less.
One can put together a case study of how not to lead based on the last 3-4 years. Impatience, operating on the surface, lack of discernment, reckless disregard for problems on the ground are critical leadership gaps. Thank you for showing us how it’s not to be done.
Honorary mention to the holiday queens parading around the globe. The people you pay peanuts to have more generosity than you, they’ll share those peanuts with you to fund memorabilia for your loved ones back home.
So messed up when CHRO and HRBPs forced everyone to be rated Partial or Achieved at best, and some at PIPs for FY24 mainly based on the outcome of the year. However these mediocre leaders were at Exceeding or Exceptional."Exceeding" for having missed year. That is additional 15% for SVPs bonus (40-50k)
You do not get paid or evaluated based on your performance but how hard you manage up to ELT. DEI groups were rated exceeding and exceptional versus men. That's fact def in America region.
Sales, consulting , products - ask yourself that question next time you get less than 1% & half your bonus you should reach out to SLT and CRO. They will be rated exceptional FY25
CRO/Goran - this is getting ridiculous. make a change and listen to employees in pain if you are a man of your word. Competitors and clients are reading this. Ex FDS are exchanging this with each other.
Set an example for the young generation. Do not let few burn the house down. You want to leave a legacy here and not failure. You are the last one left caring. We need you. Please listen to employees.
Believe me there issues with many teams however main problem is a few of the leaders especially ex CRO and head of Americas sales.
Look at ex CRO finance team. 2/3 of them quit or got fired from
P&P to IR and few more.
Americas is overstaffed is a few wrong areas because of friends and family structure there. Some of the sales and consultants working their a-s off with no recognition. They put reports together so head person can frame as her own. She can barely turn computer on without help from directs and admin.
Organize everything under sales manager for AMs. Decent guy and brings everyone as one united team.
How did we go from Mike D, Mike F, John W, Rich N, Phil H and many others to this?
We have Mike D award. We should have hall of shame award for head of sales in Americas and many more. They meet requirements every day for this award
As an ex-employee and now a FactSet client, it is amazing to me how many levels I need to traverse before a question gets resolved. I have 10-12 FactSet cards and can easily see 4-5 of these are no longer with the company or associated with my account.
Time for a reality check, a consideration of client experience is necessary.
It’s not easy to align varied stakeholders to a common value when those are not being demonstrated by leadership themselves.
HS and RR, for instance: there is an unsaid disdain for generalists being daft and specialists being arrogant.
Within Sales, there is power play between sales, consulting managers and consultants. While regional sales directors wanted to empower consulting, Americas wanted to take account management and pass it on to their long time farmers given the powerplay between sales and consulting director. Does the Sales Director have the courage to clean up her org? Add the ops team wanting to control budgets and be the kingmakers.
Within IBS, specialists, PS, Analytics support and product have their own internal dynamics. PS tends to look down on “support”, Analytics support looks down on account management. COE’s battling for control over support.
ES - misaligned and inefficient for regions. Pompous given the SCG history despite the ownership falling back to regions. Backstabbing is most accepted here after IBS. They’ll do it while smiling at you and gaslight with such finesse, nothing is ever done poorly by them.
A consistently client centric and values based approach was only exhibited by Dealmakers. Credit to GS? Perhaps.
Ex CFO knew the excess could have been managed far better. She also nudged the CEO to make decisions he didn’t want to but those that were necessary. HS is better at managing up, built more trust up even though one can call her bankrupt in terms of followership.
People officer inspires zero trust. Reeks of prejudice. Weakest function in terms of talent management and L&D. Old, dysfunctional leadership across this group who are in it for the ease and comfort rather than a desire to contribute meaningfully.
With such a weak and divided ELT, is it a surprise that the ones reporting to them are also self serving? Substance left this firm a long time ago. What’s left are power hungry people who unfortunately cannot manage power well.
A lot is said about the Head of Sales, Americas but curious about what the Head of Sales ops was doing pandering to such a broad organisational change without the buy in from stakeholders?
Bulldozing the SBU’s, product, regions seems to run counter to the spiel of “we’re here to help support the sales for FDS”
Some incredibly hard working and talented people are in the Sales org. So this isn’t on “ all” sales. It wouldn’t be wrong to say though that a lot of salespeople at FactSet have a chip on their shoulder.
Very few salespeople are able to align well internally without having a “holier than thou” mentality. Monitoring how many emails a consultant sent is not going to help them hit their target. Actually going out meeting people and sending prospects emails themselves might.