Pros
Pay is consistent with market value and benefits are decent. Training and understanding the procurement world was very interesting. There are some very smart and capable people that truly try to fight an old school corporate system to make progress for the company.
Cons
While it was never explicitly said, I was clearly a personality hire. That was fine by me, but I still believed that my years of experience in Content Marketing along with my years as an international business owner would also be an asset to the company. Unfortunately, when every contribution, idea, or sentence I uttered in any meeting was immediately shut down, ignored, or given credit to "the team", I realized it wasn't my experience that was valued here. I was asked by leadership if I had ever run a content campaign, despite my resume and portfolio clearly outlining my experience. I was told by leadership that part of being accountable, was holding myself accountable when leadership themselves missed a deadline. As the only black presenting person in the entire marketing organization, it wasn't a great look that an experienced marketer was treated as if the only contribution I had was to check a diversity box. The lack of diversity in both HR and the leadership kept me from reporting my discriminatory experiences for fear of creating an even more hostile work environment. Like many of us, I learned to keep my head down, not make waves, and do my work to the best of my abilities. Aside from treating diversity like a checklist instead of a business necessity, an issue across most tech companies (according to the NAACP) that senior leadership is well aware of, this just isn't good for the progress of the business. Compare the content and branding to that of their competitor C***a, and cross reference it with what the leadership looks like. The results speak for themselves. The person who I replaced in this position unfortunately reported this same experience, but still as a person with a wide breadth of experience, I went in with an open mind hoping it was just a question of needing someone with more insight and creativity. However, this seems like a repeated pattern to blame the person in the position instead of internal cultural problems. Like most traditional corporate companies, they believe simply saying 'diversity, accountability, and trail-blazers' makes them so without actually having to do the work to become those things. Looking at their leadership team, it's clear who they listen to, take seriously, and promote.
