Great place to start your career - after a few years run like hell
Pros
Great brands (although the company have made a couple of ridiculous acquisitions in the past couple of years, as well as unnecessary disposals) On-site bar and gym Supports further studies (e.g. ACCA) Great working environment Salary is OK but not outstanding
Cons
Reorganisations in every 2 years that usually end up in the dismissal of experienced talents and instead of resulting in a leaner organisation, more and more leadership roles are created, thus making more difficult finding out who's responsible for what Career development is not based on the individuals' qualifications and capabilities but on who they and/or their managers know. A lot of talented people are stuck in their current positions (most of them eventually leave the company) Yearly bonus is largely dependant on the company's performance. In 'not-so-good' years individual good performance is not rewarded, severely diminishing moral High exposure to emerging markets: while these can drive very high growth rates, can also result in huge declines of revenues and profit Too many, individually small owners, who don't have enough shares to name at least one director. As a result, leadership can do whatever they want (as long as they sound convincing to investors) There are a lot of (good) brands that nobody has experience managing. Most notably Bushmills, which would have great potentials if the company didn't want to defeat Jameson (a brand c. 5 times the size of Bushmills) but focus on the aged malts instead that are praised by experts. Now the brand is sold to gain full control over Don Julio, well done, next time sell Guinness, perhaps you can buy another baijiu distillery in China?! A lot of poorly managed projects
