On GLG's CEO - Anonymous employee GLG Employee Review

It’s not uncommon to find sharp critiques of GLG’s CEO Alexander Saint-Amand on Glassdoor and I thought I’d take a moment to share my own view of his executive acumen. I have worked at GLG for three quarters of my professional life, in three different roles and for two different business units. Hopefully that breadth of experience carries some weight as folks evaluating GLG for prospective employment think about its leadership. Leadership or lack thereof in a CEO can manifest in any number of forms but the good ones are true to themselves. Introverts who try and make themselves something they’re not by engaging employees often in an attempt to “rally the troops” can come off clumsy and disingenuous. Extraverts who are content to focus inward on strategy, operations, capital structure and capital allocation might demotivate employees by robbing them of the chance to hear from their company’s leader. Alexander has an introverted executive style. There's no question. Critics would be well-served to keep in mind, though, that a good leader does not try to be something he or she is not. Give me substance over style every day of the week. Detractors would also do well to remind themselves that whatever contribution they are making to GLG, Alexander has likely done it. He’s been a Research Manager, he’s programmed Live Meetings, he’s sold, he’s raised money, and he’s seen the company through boom times and through a recession of historic proportions. And just like every other GLG employee, he’s both succeeded and he’s failed. He’d be the first to admit as much. Go ahead and talk to him some time about HighTable, about veering away from a professional services culture and stressing a technology one, about over-investing in business units that ultimately held less promise than established ones. If you want to criticize him on the merits, he’d love to hear from you. Really. And finally, to his credit, he’s evolved. He’s no longer so introverted. He’ll talk to any employee about the strategic direction of the company, about the culture of curiosity and learning he wishes to foster, about past mistakes. I’ll concede that some of the critiques of Alexander’s style one can readily view on Glassdoor, at one time, may have carried some merit. But nearly all of them are now dated. Alexander is firing on all cylinders at the moment, communicating effectively and often with employees, and doing so with a great deal of conviction around a strategy whose early returns look excellent.