Liquidnet Reviews

Pros

Progressive, forward thinking company with a vibrant work-ethic, good values and unlimited upside. The basic idea the firm is built on remains revolutionary. It's goals will continue to advance the only honest answer to fair buyside-only trading.

Cons

Sometimes the firm gets ahead of itself with excitement over constant new ideas and loses focus on the core business and simple straightforward value that is added every day.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue the recent move of swapping out imposters for serious business people. That is all that has been missing. The model is fantastic and dealing with it in a straightforward manner will win out.

Pros

The people, the ones who do work in technology and business are very good and willing to go the extra mile. There are lots of great events and the benefits are ok, though not as good as other places. There is plenty of work to do, but that's mostly because Leadership keeps changing direction, almost weekly. The beers and lunches are cool, but hardly original anymore.

Cons

CEO and Leadership are basically not built for the current business environment. We had some great people but they either left or were pushed out, sure wish they were there now. Technology is a complete disaster as shown by the fact Liquidnet crashed last week due to an anomaly (what is this Star Trek?). No upside to careers, especially in sales and technology. Outsiders have a better chance at promotion. Salary is well below comparable ones in the industry and the equity is worthless to most of us anymore.

Advice to Senior Management

Business is dying, latest numbers are scary bad and leadership keeps thinking they are going to become investment bankers by getting into private transactions with everyone else. Since they couldn't even do their own IPO at what was the perfect time, 2007, why would anyone want them to get involved with their IPO or Secondary?

 Leadership has only one or two people with experience but we still keep bloated departments like HR and Finance, but since there managers are such "YES" people they never seem to get cut to where they should be. The company is twice as big than it should be with these latest numbers. Marketing has a lot of people and gets a ton of dough too, but thats well spent getting the CEOs name and face in the news. Doesn't result in any commissions but who cares about that when you can be on Bloomberg with a 1000 other people.

A new CEO would do wonders for this place, it would at least lower the embarassment most employees feel. Most people laugh at any attempt by Leadership to talk about how things are turning around or how after years we are finally going to break that glass ceiling. Sure Trading is down everywhere, but at least they are not spending millions on ideas like the "exchange strategy" or data warehousing. They spend money on the November summit and talk about LNU but business is worse than ever. There are all costs which never show any return.

This is not a place you want to work, unless you really need a check and an education on how to run a business into the ground.

Pros

Transparent management
Innvovative technology implementations
Very friendly, down-to-earth atmosphere, collaboration and support between and within the teams,
Smart and energetic people, who really care about their work
Excellent benefits package
Encouragement of continuing education, lots of free seminars, classes and discussussions
Free lunches on Fridays,
Foosball and billiard tables during breaks

Cons

It is a relatively small company, so, obviously, there is not much room for advancement within the managerial track

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the great work!

Pros

Great benefits with a good balance of family and work
Excellent middle managers who made an effort to get to know "assembly line" people and not just suck up, but they don't last long
Fun events that created a culture unlike anything the industry had ever seen
Once lean, mean and formidable
In the early days great bonus plan across the firm til a new HR regime came in and killed it and our culture

Cons

No consensus management, there's only one decision maker
Too many management changes and product changes, but not where it counts
Politics are out of control leading to the continued loss of great people
Fear is now a top motivator
Technology is not kept up to date and doesn't reflect needs of the clients today
Leadership is considered weak and incompetent by most of the company and has zero respect
There is more emphasis on getting mentioned in the press than on making the products better
Too many non-revenue producing products and ideas getting in the way of the business

Advice to Senior Management

I wish I could give them advice, but there are enough of these reviews to confirm that the problem is Leadership. Everyone knows, even competitors, that they are not equipped to run this company so I won't waste another review confirming that. There were some great managers but most are gone. My advice would be to tell the truth, its that simple, and here it is.

You're not an investment bank, you never will be. Getting your name on a couple of minor deals means nothing. You're not a research house, thats a "me too" product if there ever was one and no one cares about that. You are not an algo provider or an EMS, though you spent a lot of money trying. You are a simple block crossing ATS with an institutional client base just like Blockcross, ITG, Bloomberg, every bulge bracket firm and many, many others. Your client base uses all your competitors for less money and more volume. You are not the voice of the Buy Side, they have their own voice. No amount of press conferences, media releases and ad hominem spin about what you think the industry should be doing will get you volume. As a result your competitors know more about your business than you do about theirs, and they will either replicate your ideas or follow up with a better product.

Your products are used the same way they were 10 years ago, while most firms spent the last few years building better front ends, better technology, and offering better tools. Unlike most Brokers, your business model relies heavily on third parties. You have a very small market share and shrinking. The innovations you brought to the market are now over a decade old. The Patent has not protected your business. While you have offices all over the world, you are not Global, the management structure you put in place ensures you never will be. Your revenue and margins are falling, thus you will not be able to IPO. You are not "Best in the World" at anything anymore.

Spend your time and money and figure out why.

Pros

- generous benefits (also progressive: Liquidnet's won awards for its adoption policy and also treats gay employees equally with benefits)
- casual and fun culture: jeans, pool table, free snacks/drinks, tons of parties, Friday lunch, etc.
- have to admit that leadership does go out of its way to inform employees
- I am very proud to work for a company that takes giving back so seriously. All the work that Liquidnet for Good does is truly impressive
- community feel to the company

Cons

- Seth is brilliant but a poor manager
- Many others - though not all - on senior leadership couldn't lead themselves out of a box and are woefully not up to the task of managing such a promising company as Liquidnet still is. Many are delusional about their professional skills and abilities and should be held accountable.

Advice to Senior Management

- restructure leadership team
- hold leadership team accountable for results
- let Seth be Seth and focus on what he's good at (visionary and innovator); bring on someone else to manage the company's revenue and operations day to day

Pros

the work environment is fun, the offices are great and there's a great deal of spending on employees.
also, there's flexibility around one's responsibilities- if you think you can do it, you're encouraged to go for it.
plenty of resources (educational, financial, etc.)
seth, and a few others are VERY passionate about the company and their role in it.

Cons

lack of structure. some departments did not have a clear managerial design, so people end up trying to survive without any leadership.
there is no inter-departmental integration, so a lot of resources are being wasted.
AND IT'S A BIG BOYS' CLUB. vendors are brought in because they're somebody's friends, not because they do a good job. the same happens with a lot of hires, and the prize is only shared by the big boys on top (always). politics are ridiculous, and many times employees end up between a rock and a hard place when trying to do their job (for example, ask more from a vendor who happens to be their boss' friend).
no transparency either.

Advice to Senior Management

don't let politics get in the way of keeping valuable employees.
and don't give anyone the impression that the big boys can get away with anything- it's bad, bad, BAD for the morale. because words travel fast and people always know about the fishy things the big boys are trying to conceal.

Pros

Great talent on staff.
Vibrant corporate office (mostly).
Nice employee perks.
Great employee training.
Fun office culture.
Passionate upper management.

Cons

Dwindling company that has trouble retaining talented employees.
HR over promises and under delivers in terms of compensation packages and benefits.
There are quite a few people on staff with huge salaries that don't do much with their time, while others work very hard for the bare minimum.

Advice to Senior Management

Transparency is key, many employees no longer feel like stake holders in the company. It may be time for reassessment of senior management.

Pros

Not too complicated a place. Simple product to understand. Very enthusiastic about themselves. Master of the universe mentality. The emperor has no clothes.

Cons

Don't really listen to their customers. It's their way or the highway. Membership has its privileges and don't you every forget that.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep it up. You are doing great. Reward your employees with stock and continue to dangle that carrot. Any day now the light bulb will go off over your head.

Pros

Up to 2008 it was the best place on earth to work:
- great culture
- great people
- ridiculous comp
- work hard, play hard

end of 2010 forward:
- Currently headed in correct direction.
- Culture / quality killers were removed.
- Management has started listening again.

Cons

Flexible working arrangements generally not part of culture.

For about 2 years from 2008 to 2010:
- culture fell apart, taken over by people who came from failed investment banks.
- New middle to upper managers from outside had self-serving agendas
- quality fell apart and everybody was blamed but the source of the problem.
- Upper management stopped listening to the people they trusted for years.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't ever stop listening to your employees again! Don't say you're open and honest then punish those that are. Don't ever compromise on the no a-hole rule again.

Pros

-Finally got the benefits right
-Good personal life/work life balance
-Large group of talented, innovative people

Cons

-Leadership lost their way and having a hard time getting on track
-Leadership does not live up to the core values they place on the rest of the employees
-Waste of talent stuck below managers who will not listen
-Lack of change on Executive Team
-"Inner circle" mentality throughout the organisation stifling progress and growth
-Lack of experience in key management roles
-All decisions have become reactive instead of proactive
-GTE

Advice to Senior Management

When considering cost cuts and head count reductions look around the table at each other first. Understand who and what type of firm you want to be and develop the business strategy around that. Listen to middle management and the rest of the employees - that is where the talent lies. It is not in the poor executive team that had steered this ship into the iceberg.