I'm amazed that the we're still running as I'm guessing the interest paid on all the money borrowed to buy bad fitting companies might nearly be more than the money earned, and given the amount of people being sacked for no reason (there's hearsay that we've looked into getting rid of 50% of our managed services team?!) might we finally be about to die? Saying that, we'll probably find another mug invester or lender to keep us zombying around for a little longer.
The CEO seems to be utterly clueless but has no idea or is too proud to admit that he's clueless (happily ignorant perhaps?) buying companies on a whim and seemingly soon after losing so much on them time and time again sticking his finger in the air to guess at a buying price. Supposedly the former CFO (long story on CFOs below) started with us and then stopped a deal within a few weeks after joining as he actually bothered to properly value the company and realised we were about to pay over 50% too much for it! This CFO is no longer with us and they've rehired a previous CFO. The CEO seems like he's now hired his daughter straight out of university to be an M&A analyst?!!!?!!, but even if we get the price right on a company, it still doesn't mean its the right company to buy?! His ego is out of control and the executive team seemingly never challenge him (reportedly earning too much to ever risk losing their jobs), he seems to be warned of obvious pitfalls but ignores advice and seems to walk straight into them over and over. The CEO seems so fond as having puppet executives that it looks like he recently hired a former Chief Sales Officer (who the CFO reportedly said himself wasn't very good but always did what he was told) as the new CEO of one of his spin off companies (Vybbe - read other reviews on Calligo to find more about this nonsense)! Supposedly he also fell out with the previous chief security officer who, supposedly, walked after the CEO was alledgly trying to get him to not report to their key client about security breaches that they were obliged to report. There's so much gossip about the CEO's mishaps that I'm suprised the board hasn't sacked him yet, but then the CEO is the one who will decide what the board hears or doesn't hear.... but poor performance should be enough? Perhaps, but I heard that the board previously brought in a COO (then CRO) to replace the current CEO because he's so bad, but then the CRO was let go (along with loads others). With so much smoke and mirrors I'm guessing the board (mainly private equity owner) didn't want to change the CEO at the same time as trying to quickly get out of their investment without too much of a loss. Someone mentioned a merger the other day but this is probably just a euphemism for a distressed sale to bail us out?! There was even a story where he was apologising through email to customers in Ireland for service being so bad after we bought the companies there and then ruined them, but supposedly rather than admit blame he instead named a former owner of one of the irish companies as having mental health problems as being the cause.... And we're meant to be Data Privacy consultants?!!! Guessing this was settled out of court at some stupid cost to the business.
As mentioned about the current CFO, you have to feel sorry for him. It seems as though he was sacked and supposedly was going to be sued by Calligo (guessing he was thrown under the bus by the CEO for the CEO's seemingly terrible purchases in Ireland), but now he's back working for us again?! Do we really pay our top dogs that much that they'd silently put up with that kind of treatment?! The culture here is really bad because of these terrible relationships at the top.
Why am I still here? I'm waiting for the inevitable letting go without following proper HR practices so I can get a nice pay out.
