CBI Research Reviews

Management: The leadership at CBI is as bad as it gets. The team is comprised mostly of women who have all been there for 10+ years and have never worked anywhere except CBI, (besides perhaps one other job post college). They are extremely catty, bully the employees daily, gossip about every person in the office and speak to all subordinates with complete disrespect. They take micromanagement to a new level and your opinions and ideas are forbidden. Your professional development will regress throughout your tenure here because you will never be allowed to make even the smallest decision without approval from your manager. They consistently lie to employees and manipulate the staff daily into believing they are worthless and incompetent if they do not work around the clock to reach the unattainable deadlines that are set by management. The processes are completely outdated and nothing has changed in the way they do business since the early 2000s when the nokia flip phone was still the hottest technology on the market. Culture: Horrible office environment. Employee perks are nonexistent and more than 50% of the employees have quit over the past 15 months, so the workload and expectations for people still there are completely unmanageable unless you work 60+ hours a week. Add huge pay cuts each year to that and you can see why everyone is so burnt out, uninspired and unmotivated. Quality of Products: This is the worst part about working at CBI. Management does not care about quality. Their main concern is churning and burning as many conferences out to the market as possible regardless of how terrible the events are. We are forced to lie to our speakers, sponsors and attendees to get their money which results in furious clients and a horrible reputation in the marketplace. CBI will never refund money to an unsatisfied client. Morals and pride in your work must take a backseat until you find a new job where you can actually look your customers in the face without cringing with embarrassment.

Don’t let the above pros fool you. While it sounds good on paper (it sure did to me), this is a pretty terrible company to work for. Not only will you be lied to in your interview about commission, career growth opportunities and expectations, but the bullying from upper management will never ever stop. Prepare for your quality of life to drastically decrease while your stress levels rapidly increase. Don’t let the previous “positive posts” steer you to accept that offer from CBI. It can also be confirmed that these were written by upper management when they heard of all the terrible posts written about their company. Notice how they were all written on the same day? This company has the ability to be a great company but management is too worried about “hitting the budget” than putting the resources into the conferences that are produced. The management team would rather sacrifice quality over quantity than put in the time to truly think about a conference’s commercial viability. CBI says that they pride themselves on content and always put the customer first, but that is 100% not true. Management would rather a customer pay a lot of money for a conference that has 3 attendees and 5 speakers than lose money. That’s just not right. One phrase used quite frequently at this company is, “well, when I was doing this we did it this way.” That’s great, Congratulations… If we were 20 years in the past. CBI refuses to adapt to the changing industry and generations that are now entering the workforce. If you are going to be a company who hires newly graduated college students, then it’s time to join the now and get out of the past. “Phone Blitz Tuesday” where CBI employees cold call industry every Tuesday. Would you want a call out of the blue at 9:30am? I don’t think so. As stated before, this company has the potential to be a great company, but with the leaders it currently has, there is no hope. Prepare for the heat, because this company will soon go up in flames.