Great out of the box thinking: hire someone with no wheels design experience or managing designer experience to feed your inferiority complex.
43 replies (most recent on top)
If you're on board, you're either Down or you don't work for him. The guy is not SVP material and has no idea what to do with a brand this size. He hired Woo so he wouldn't be threatened by a real designer on Wheels, since he was already challenged on his ideas and made many of those people go away or clock blocked them from being on Wheels. His passive aggressive style of praising designers work and then changing it behind their back pisses off his whole team. Remember, Down thought Tim Parsley was a smart guy. The only reason he and the heads of Girls and Barbie are still around is they suck up to Richard. That's not what's going to turn around Barbie, and Down will be the one to similarly ride Hot Wheels into the ground.
You're still onboard until they need another lower level scapegoat to layoff in order to keep their director and above asses safe.
I dont have to, future of that brand will show the results in $$$ as its doing now.
Haters can hate.
Get a hobby or a different job if you dont have a life or dont like it here. Plenty of us are still on board.
I'm interested in how you can quantify Down as a progressive thinker. Lay it out like bullet points as if it were his TRAC. C'mon, curious to hear... :)
Great out-of-box thinking to promote Wu! I agree with whomever posted that Down is the only SVP worth keeping. Progressive, brilliant thinker. Kudos to him!
Whatever credibility Down had has evaporated with his choice of a marketing stooge for the vp of design.
What did he take a pottery class and now for some reason he's qualified?
How bout we put design people in marketing jobs instead and let the shuttle drivers make the food in the cafeteria.
Why the hell not. Good job Down!
Whatever credibility Down had has evaporated with his choice of a marketing stooge for the vp of design.
What did he take a pottery class and now for some reason he's qualified?
How bout we put design people in marketing jobs instead and let the shuttle drivers make the food in the cafeteria.
Why the hell not. Good job Down!
Whatever credibility Down had has evaporated with his choice of a marketing stooge for the vp of design.
What did he take a pottery class and now for some reason he's qualified?
How bout we put design people in marketing jobs instead and let the shuttle drivers make the food in the cafeteria.
Why the hell not. Good job Down!
To the person who posted Down is the only SVP worth keeping, you're either his wife or an idiot. He is in way over his head and his passive aggressive management style demeans his staff. He needs to go.
As long as the big paychecks are there, the soul suckers will always be lining up for their (un)fair share of the pie. It's amazing to me that a company whose foundations should be built upon the idea of friendship & fun is anything but. How can the world's largest toy maker be riddled with such crooks and thieves with no good intent? If you want to rebuild this company to reclaim its position of power, we've got to go find the folks who LOVE toys. People who eat, breathe and sleep it. If you don't, don't waste people's time. Talking to you Dixon and all others who forgot what real FUN was all about.
Mattel has been decayed from within for quite some time now. All the EVP's, SVP's, VP's down to the Directors & Managers below them. As an earlier post stated, all the real talent was either driven out because they stated their opinions as Designers or they left on their own. It's the culture that's the cancer at that place. I know other very talented people who are now at other places who actually love going to work and being creative & counted on AND rewarded for their efforts. At Mattel it's all about people stealing the credit from others who actually did the work. I saw it happen time after time after time. So called upper-management throwing non bootlickers under the bus. Let's have a meeting to see when we can meet next :) Hasbro is laughing all the way to the bank & back. I sure hope they are reading this blog. But a fork in Mattel, it's done.
interesting article on Wall Street journal lamenting the loss of kilo in at a time when Mattel is in such dire straits. worth a read.
It can only get worse.... If justice prevails and Voss, Swicher and Goodman are shown the exit door mat, after years of serving their own needs, can you imagine their possible successors. And....we all know who they are. We can only hope that senior mgmt (who ever axed T. Kilpin) makes sure that they also clear out these spineless YES men and women. Their best talent was to keep a straight face when they passed on the unreasonable request to the "worker" level from above. No questioning of the absurdity. And....you know who you are.
@136542: Thanks for weighing in, Chris! Too bad that good management isn't a popularity contest.
Down is THE ONLY SVP worth keeping.
Could Mattel be on the Verge of The Purge? Time for a full flushing? Dickson will make his millions just like all the other fat cats on the 15th floor in the Tower of Power then leave with his treasure just like all those before him. Layoffs are coming before Q4 once the bean counters see how dire the numbers are because they will be. They can project the numbers by the orders )...........
Word was that Voss was on probation at Hasbro before that other ex Toyz band member genius Richie Wientraub brought him back to Mattel. Richie hung around for two years after he left with the super sweet deal he got. Just walked around the Design Center telling everybody helllo. All Voss did was promote his close friends & bootlickers, two who got purged last layoff. He was almost out the door once when all the Brands that actually made money were taken from him & given to Katherine Dimas then she left for SpinMaster:( so Voss slithered back in thanks to that rocket scientist Gary Swisher. It's plain to see why the Company is done, next big License to lose will be DPCars as so called upper mismanagement trashed that Line as well. Thanks Doug, Tim, & Gabe Carlson.........Hasbro is killing Mattel.
Yeah, we've all been waiting years to see any glimmer of genious out of Voss. Still waiting. HR and security, got time for one more? Keep 'em coming! And don't get me started on Down. That turd peaked long ago and is ripe for flushing.
Fond farewell? Have you been paying attention? Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Kilpin recorded albums while Mattel crashed & burned. Good riddance and high time. If Sr management ever cared enough to read the climate surveys they hand out, and reacted proactively, they might have avoided this iceberg. But the Toys band just played on. Tim, Felix, and Ned are now available to play at barmitzvahs and car dealership openings. "Don't Stop Believing", guys!
Voss and all his parasite tape worms have accomplished absolutely nothing...........Shane Amersterdam? What exactly does he do again? Nothing..........I know, let's do another New, Next, Now!!!!!!!!!!! Not. wait, they did Apptivities?............Almost 2/3 years to launch BoomCo which was an outside submission BTW..........came from an outside Inventor. no worries, it went nowhere and they probably didn't even break even after spending all that money on Royalty $, Tooling, D)
Whomever said Tim left on his own is oblivious and wrong. Just look at the 8K filed. Says clear as day that his contract was terminated. Just shows how dilusional some people are
Today Wadleigh took the walk of shame. Gonesville, population 2. Who's next? Voss? Down? Place your bets!
Tim K made so much money he never has to work a day in his life again.............same with any other SVP & EVP. The only thing he'll miss is the power he once had over many, many people. Not quite the same telling the wife what to do & she'll probably won't do it anyway :)
He didn't leave on his own, he was forced out by Dickson. What goes around comes around as Tim gave the nod to who left when in the Design Center. His turn now. Karma.
I'm sure he's not feeling all that bad sailing down to earth with his platinum parachute.
First time....bumped out by Matt Bousquette and now by Richard Dickson....after all you gave. And....now you will know intimately how the rest of us old timers feel, betrayed by the company that we gave our heart and soul to. It really sucks doesn't it?
Mattel's methodology only worked back then because we barely had competition and we actually made decent product.
Yes Tim K was part of that so he gets some credit. MATTEL is a toy company. Barbie is NOT a fashion brand. HOT Wheels is NOT a lifestyle brand. Monster High is NOT forever.
Get OVER it!!!
The issue is much greater than the people up top because it's the way Mattel approaches the toy landscape, that is the issue. Mattel is still in reactive mode because it continues to operate w policies and processes that don't make it nimble and makes it risk averse. Other companies have changed and evolved Mattel makes small changes yet keeps the hierarchical system intact relying on high paid individuals whose knowledge is pretty much outdated.
Reduce the layers. Seriously how many VPs,SVPs,GMs, can they have? They have the most inane conversations amongst themselves because they are so far removed. Why do they have so many approval processes? Marketing doesn't even do marketing. They are product managers. Why is NAD and GBT separated??? And then NAD doesn't know how to market anything that they're not familiar with. So they gotta get NADs approval on stuff too?!? No wonder it's such a cluster.
Mattel can't get nimble if everyone and their mother has to have a say on every f-Ing product. STOP just STOP
Leaving in November....then who's left in the HTC that has an actual heart or "real" compassion to manage/supervise the Xmas "gift giving" activities for the local children of need during the coming holidays. Let's make sure that someone that actually cares steps in to put a smile on all their faces.
Tim will either reappear as head of another small toy company or start his own taking a bunch of ex-Mattel heads with him.
Agreed on leaker and the clown she brought back from spin master. Never seen someone do so little and have the Gaul to take credit for his teams hard work. Marketing on a whole needs a culling. Enough of this reorg crap. Most are useless and ineffective.
One can only hope that someday soon Lecker gets what she has coming to her. All those years of treating everyone under her as if they're worthless & stupid when in reality she wouldn't know a good toy idea if it came and whacked her over the head. Everything that she takes credit for HAPPENED on her watch, she didn't GUIDE or INITIATE anything. She always had the luck to be in the RIGHT place at the RIGHT time. That's IT. People like her just can't survive, she has nothing to contribute except her phony. calculating charms. if your only power is that of intimidation, then you will never grow the people in your company.
the only ones left are walker and lecker. those will be the ones that rise to the top. any word on whether nad survives?
Doug, Down, Swish, Voss, Goodman and their lackies should all be shaking in their sneakers. Looks like their good old boy club is falling apart from the top down, couldn't happen to a more deserving group of ass clowns. They have all known for years that Mattel wasn't sustainable under their cavalcade of screwups and the marketing controlled, fear based regime they created. I hope that proper cuts at the top will spare the few talented design peeps who remain and haven't fled to Hasbro yet.
When will Doug W. go? DPCars profits evaporated under him & Tim K. The Litter, er,......... Toy Box actually come up with something that will actually sell?
Brand Reductions, er...........Productions? reduced Max Steel to nada from a 100 million dollar Line? Chris "Cliche" Down, can't draw but heading all of Design? Really? And people wonder why the Company is in the toilet?
Barbie Frozen out, Hasbro's on fire with it's stock in the mid 70's & just wait until the Frozen money starts lifting their Girls division profits again. Barbie's pink was the Mattel green but no longer.
The Company will just layoff more low level workers in order to keep the dividends up or the Mattel stock will sink even lower. Another email saying "Pls. help me welcome".........yet another VP who does absolutely nothing.....
They keep saying how Hot Wheels numbers are up but compared to what? Why don't say how much those numbers have sunk from the good years? All the numbers they post at the end of Q's are a shell game as they have nothing really big coming up. Zero. The have to rely on an outside firm for ideas because they've driven away the real talented people who didn't kiss a VP's ring? Odette Vandenberg is now creating beautiful Frozen Castle play sets now for Hasbro. Nice...........
Games & Puzzles aren't even shown in the pie chart anymore. Great job Lisa S.....whatever doesn't make sense makes sense at Mattel.
Next layoffs employees will get 3 severance weeks pay no matter how long they were there except VP's and up. It's like Animal Farm, all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
bwahahahahahaha! the EA silver fox with his tight sweaters and puckered lips. I can see it now, being walked out the door and the confetti being thrown over the cubicles as he's led out. Only a matter of time before his failures catch up to him and he's out too!
Long overdue. Nice guy but he was a feel-good peacekeeper. Never pushed the envelope. On his watch, innovation became a buzzword and the culture decayed. Now no one is safe. Watch out, Veeps. This heralds the start of a long-overdue housecleaning that may eventually lead to recovery.
nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah, hey hey hey, GOODBYE.
Please let this be the start of a growing trend where this happens in every division. I would love to come in one day and see the "silver fox" vp in EA being escorted out. It's about time.
Nice guy but a failure. He made way too many mistakes that he seemed to always get away with.
Left on his own - 100% confirmed
Kharma