Ashoka reviews

- The CEO lacks ethical fiber; he acts in the best interest of himself, not the organization or its mission. - The CEO lies regularly and has created a culture of fear-motivated performance amongst his senior leaders who are incapable of holding him accountable. - The CEO is unable to accept any criticism without a tantrum or developing a grudge. - The CEO’s “new ideas” are not new. He believes he’s the first to describe concepts or processes that have been around for 15+ years. All he does is repackage the ideas in so much jargon and fluff. He puts the responsibility on the rest of the organization to decipher what he actually means, which often takes years as he constantly moves the goal posts without warning or consultation with anyone else. - The CEO is 80+ years old and has no succession plan or process that is implementable. - The CEO often counts the number of women and employees of color in the head office as evidence that there is no DEI issues in the office. - Many senior and mid level staff at the Global Office tend to go on medical leave or a sabbatical and never come back to Ashoka.

Ashoka will not change. This is a very bottom-heavy organization with a small and very well paid leadership core and the rest of the staff struggling on below-average salaries. This is an intentional decision modeled after the business consulting world (think Bain, McKinsey) where they encourage junior staff to move on after 1-2 years to build their external network but at Ashoka this translates into a growing community of disgruntled employees who are unwilling to engage with Ashoka after they have quit. The leadership is chaotic and undisciplined and chases after whatever whim comes to the CEO which wreaks havoc on the ranks that have to support the new initiatives. Capacity building and career growth are abandoned quickly in favor of buzz words and feel-good initiatives without any sense of a long-term strategy. There is a culture of innovation and a "flat-hierarchy" but this only contributes to the anarchy -- attempts to build long-term institutional capacity are overwhelmed by a barrage of ill-concieved projects spun up at a whim by competing directors or their over-empowered interns that leave a scarred landscape of failed initiatives and demoralized staff.