Grayling Reviews

I was a vice president in the Los Angeles office of Grayling when my managing director, a talented friend of mine with about a year more time in the biz than me, resigned to take an in-house position. He had been at the helm about a year. After 3 months in the role, he was promoted from interim managing director to full managing director. After he left and upon his recommendation, I lobbied to take his place to our CEO Peter Harris. I had an excellent rapport with the global team and had helped improve the Los Angeles office since joining the company. As second in command to my colleague, no one could say I wasn't capable and that it didn't make sense. My lobbying was met with immediate resistance. "It's a big job." "Are you sure you want to do this at this point in your life?", etc. I had just gotten married and am of child bearing years. A first strike. Begrudgingly, I was allowed to assume the role, but was offered only a promotion to SVP and an extremely low raise for that title (though I wouldn’t know how much less I was making than my male predecessor and future MD in SF until later, when the CFO accidentally shared a document with salary allocation to the entire leadership team - in case you’re curious it was a full 70K less at first and then 30K when I insisted we close the gap further after 3 months. I was never was paid equally, even when I asked specifically to make what was being paid to men in the same role.) During the SVP promo conversation, I asked about interim managing director title. I had seen my male predecessor's trajectory and given our identical qualifications, I expected to follow suit. I was told, “we are not sure we’re going to continue with individual office MD’s.” I accepted, and towed the company line, requesting/demanding quarterly reviews to ensure I was crystal clear on expectations and progress. I had to hammer Peter Harris to get those meetings, and get clear and measurable goals and timelines for my “earning” the title of managing director. I was told to meet the numbers for the office, reduce turnover and maintain the client roster, as well as grow the new business pipeline from zero. He refused to set timelines with me. Point blank. In addition to saving clients from other offices, maintaining my team and growing my clients organically, toward the end of the year, I secured a six-figure project with a former client due to my work and reputation. This not only closed the numbers for LA, but also went toward closing the gap for the U.S. I was concerned about not being in the office, as it was an on-site 100% allocation project, but Peter told me it wasn’t an issue and that the lack of momentum on new biz wouldn’t be an issue. While I was off-site for the last quarter of 2016 with this project, I found out through the grapevine that the leadership has been searching for a new MD in SF, so obviously the managing director structure was to continue. I pushed immediately for a review. it was November. In February 2017, literally the day before my maternity leave was to start, I was finally granted the check in conversation - not even a formal review. I was told that I wasn’t creating enough new business momentum through the prior quarter and that I “just wasn’t ready.” So not only did he back pedal on what he had said previously, but the reasons for not promoting me were nebulous. I had earned it and then some, clear and simple. To me, there is no clearer example of discrimination on the basis of sex than my experience described above. I was pregnant, young and a woman. Despite constant meeting of a consistently and randomly raised bar, I was still not paid or titled equally to my male counterparts. While this did happen at Grayling, and I strongly suggest you do not work there if at all possible, it happens everywhere in this industry. I hope this is a call to other professionals to shine a light where one is so desperately needed.