Bisnow's CEO, Will Friend, creates for a toxic workplace environment
Pros
You will get a ton of responsibility right from the beginning, which is great so far as building experience and learning what makes a media & events company successful. It's also a great place if you have a passion for Commercial Real Estate and want to meet the people who are the movers & shakers of the industry.
Cons
The company is run by a megalomaniac who probably doesn't even know the definition of the term. I worked closely in the C-Suite for some time and could be one of several people writing this review because Will rubbed so many of us the wrong way. He was constantly inappropriate whilst I was there. I overheard him make a multitude of sexist, classist, and homophobic remarks. He's created the kind of environment where the men on the sales team who have been there the longest, or who he simply just likes, are the ones that are treated with respect--everyone else is spoken down to. I witnessed him lose his temper in an extremely unprofessional way several times throughout my time there--he'd be having a bad day and would decide to berate someone who didn't deserve it in front of people. If we were behind our revenue targets for a quarter, he would get excited about the prospect of letting people go because he "loves firing people." He would make suggestions about people we should fire on almost a daily basis because he thought it was funny. He loves to "get in the weeds" and have unnecessary meetings, presentations, etc. that are a complete waste of time because he doesn't actively listen to the people whose work he's interrupting--you can tell by the questions he asks and the ones he doesn't. He knows next to nothing about Commercial Real Estate and by all accounts, he ascended to be CEO by just being in the right place in the right time and for some reason has never been replaced--it is most definitely not because he's qualified. In a company-wide meeting with Wicks, the private investment firm that purchased Bisnow, he even accidentally admitted that Wicks overpaid for Bisnow--a detail that I'm sure Dan Kortick hasn't forgotten. A workplace culture and tone is set by your CEO. Will has created a toxic one. I promise that if you randomly selected 10 people in the company who have worked there for more than 6 months and had them anonymously give feedback on him as a CEO, at least 7 people would have matching unfavorable feedback. Lastly, it should also be known that Will pressures every new hire to leave a positive Glassdoor review so that he looks better to the public.