American Express – “Hierarchy, micro-management, passive-aggressive culture, poor promotional opportunities - what's to like.”

Pros

Brand name on your resume. For NYC professionals, decent work life balance (though this seems to be eroding over time).

Cons

Many, possibly most middle managers (Directors & VPs) are very poor leaders: highly risk averse (aren't interested in any ideas that didn't come from above or can't be implemented in less than a month) and micro-managing (they tell you how to do your job, when they should focus mostly on what job to do). Musical chair city - there is no growth in positions in the company, so most open roles are filled by staff already at a given level, and the few promotions are extremely competitive and typically go to non-threatening employees with little vision but a high willingness to do exactly what they're told by micro-managing leaders and never rock any boats. Business decisions are made based on internal considerations (how many sales do we want? what does X high-level person think?) instead of external conditions (what is the market for this opportunity?) If you have an advanced business or technical degree, forget everything you've learned - you won't use it. Line groups have goals but rate people by personality rather than goal achievement; staff groups fight constant turf battles and churn pages of meaningless presentations. Manager level positions are highly tactical jobs that could easily and cheaply be filled by people straight out of undergrad. It's easy to get fooled because everyone seems nice. But don't believe it. You work here long enough, you learn to watch what they do, not what they say.

Advice to Senior Management

You hire completely capable people but then give them no responsibility and treat them as if they have no intelligence, sapping them of initiative. Fire middle management and push responsibility down to managers.