Saying my goodbyes - Strategy Consultant Interbrand Employee Review

On the rare occasion Interbrand does win itself some crumb of new business, it is always and exclusively on the back of decade-old credentials – relics of a time when the agency had competent leadership. Those days now long gone, clients are swiftly and reliably disillusioned once inside. Projects cease. Relationships sour. Nobody, ever, continues on for phase two. This cycle of deception and disappointment continues to lose Interbrand clients, respect, and its workforce. In the summer of 2025, some 20% of the London team were unceremoniously made redundant, owing to some 35% in consistent revenue shortcomings - for the third year in a row. This annual occurrence is so familiar to the team inside we’ve termed it ‘The Reaping’. Though 2025 being a particularly large fallout I do find myself wishing to clarify just one thing: IB, can you truly believe it was the junior strategists, designers, and IT staff responsible for your mess? But as the final talented five of the ‘London Hub’ privately co-ordinate their own exit, ten more C-Suite execs are hired onto a swelling ‘Global Leadership Team’ of increasingly dubious purpose. Occasionally they may occupy a 5 minute slot at the monthly all-hands meetings where they will splutter a presentation of such vapid, meandering slop you’re minded to reach out to junior staff and apologise that they are delivering, so publicly, what would surely get anyone else fired on the spot on the legitimate basis of gross incompetence. Instead, we’re encouraged to thank them in the chat. Yes, this top-heavy business has finally toppled over. Though while I’m here I absolutely must give a special mention, as others already have in their Glassdoor eulogies, to Interbrand HR. To call this HR pathetic, though entirely accurate, would be a disservice to C-Suite staff therein who have in fact masterfully sleuthed their immediate peers upon whom they are contingent (the MD and COO!) into believing the incredible lie that they work for any more than 2 hours a week. Now that I’ve left and my vital processes aren’t dependent on a profoundly broken department, I can see it for what it is: just genuinely admirable quiet quitting – bravo. And finally – strategy. While I’m not sure Interbrand’s overly narrow strategic services would have ever survived the bite of AI, its current shape has made it far easier prey. Over three years in the team I watched the headcount dwindle alongside the company’s clients and prospects – quietly, and never to be replaced. Thanks to two deeply unstrategic leaders who either can’t finish a sentence, or can but really shouldn’t - IB strategy produces only the most unsellable ideas. It even seems noble, if you squint, the relinquishing of power without even a single compelling counteraction to its obvious superior: chat-gpt, a free-to-use website. If not mercifully made redundant, for any leftover staff the writing is on the wall and it’s in the company’s signature blood red. So whichever contract is lost next on whatever dull Tuesday in Interbrand’s mucky and dilapidated ‘Studio’ (Office!) space, the sun has set on Interbrand London. To clients, prospective employees, or the morbidly curious: steer clear. We will not be hearing about Interbrand for much longer.