Great company destroyed by Private Equity - Executive Director Cengage Employee Review

2.0
15 Dec 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Cengage Learning was once (during the Thomson years) a powerful higher education company with some of the best authors and textbooks on the market.

Cons

Now in bankruptcy due to mismanagement by Apax and former senior management. I can't make a judgement on current management, but from the outside looking in, they seem to be just trying to hang on and waiting for the big payoff when company assets are sold off.

Explore other reviews about Cengage

3.0
4 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Company has some interesting approaches to the market and in the past they seemed value employees. There are some good employees there and there was, in the past, visionary leadership, but the people with the vision and leadership skills left the company a few years ago.

Cons

The company actively de-values employees. They had a project they called "Project Horizon" where they told all employees they needed to cut costs, so the company was going to have multiple layoffs over 3-5 years - but nobody was allowed to know when, where, or why - - just one day large swaths of people would be gone. That hung over everyone's heads - for years, and is indicative of how Cengage values employees - it doesn't. Everything is about trying to secure new funding and prepare for an IPO, so they stopped investing significantly in the products about 3 years ago and that's about when they stopped acting like they cared about employee wellness as well.

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