Terrible management, siloed and dishonest - Anonymous employee ADARA Employee Review

2.0
19 May 2020
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Unlimited PTO - A lot of flexibility in terms of working hours and working remotely and good work-life-balance - Pay was good - I liked my direct managers and most of the people I worked with

Cons

Disclaimer that I was part of the recent Covid-19-related layoffs so with half the people gone, the company may or may not be different when things pick back up. I'd basically echo what a lot of reviews already said. Things have been going downhill since they brought in the new COO in 2019. They created a bunch of new upper and middle management positions that they proceeded to fill with the COO's friends from his last company while ignoring qualified people internally. Of course none of these new guys (yep, all guys) knew anything about advertising which often seemed to be reflected in their "one-size-fits-all" decision making. Of course they're all still there while half the company was let go - go figure. The new execs' attitude is pretty arrogant and I've also heard reports from female co-workers about discriminatory comments. Unfortunately, having women's summits and pumping articles about Oprah and Michelle into Slack doesn't mean anything when your leadership thinks you should go back to the kitchen. As is not uncommon in ad tech, lots of questionable business practices. Upper management seems to be either unaware or pretending to be, neither of which makes them look good. The CEO comes off as pretty unlikable, dishonest and unapproachable. I don't think I've ever seen him talk to anyone who wasn't senior management. Also haven't heard a single word from him through the whole layoff situation. Communication and knowledge exchange between and within departments is pretty bad. There were several people that left and they realized a few weeks later that nobody else knew how to do X, Y or Z. Lots of reinventing the wheel because there's no exchange of learnings or expertise.

Explore other reviews about ADARA

5.0
16 May 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Great management - Great environment - Supporting team

Cons

Some of the decisions were made without reviewing the consequences.

3.0
7 Apr 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

lots of autonomy to what I think is strategic and right for the company

Cons

merging with Sojern is difficult.

See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All