Mellon Capital Management Reviews

Pros

Very good benefits and good work life balance. The corporate culture and coworkers make it easy to come into the office everyday.

Cons

Promotions are for title only with little or no increase in pay. The company is run too lean and puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the staff. No career advancement.

Advice to Senior Management

The firm's ability to manage more accounts and funds is limited with the current systems and the lack of continuity across portfolio management systems will only make worse.

Pros

Great work/life balance
Good Compensation and benefits
Company support for educational/professional development
Terrific for recent grad to learn investments from an asset manager that invests across various asset classes and with various innovative investment strategies

Cons

Middle Managers don't necessarily add value and also need management and leadership training
Favoritism and corporate politics

Advice to Senior Management

There are a few individuals in the middle management level that need to be left go. Back office operations should also be reviewed and revamped.

Pros

Other employers will respect the name on your resume. Better than most asset managers.

Cons

Only the most senior get promoted. They are really cheap. BNY Mellon corporate is really running the show. Overly obsessed with academic and professional credentials, especially in cases where relevance to job is debatable. Not a true meritocracy because most managers are too chicken to show leadership to senior management. Senior management is very aloof and hardly make their presence felt. Never knew most of them, never saw them. What do they do exactly?

Advice to Senior Management

Recognize the mid level people doing the heavy lifting. If you can't afford a raise, give a title promotion. There are smart people, good workers, with lots of talent, try harder to identify these people or that "giant sucking sound" you hear is the exodus of talent to better firms.

Pros

Mcm has great work life balance

Cons

Real promotions are incredibly hard. Title changes are also hard.

Advice to Senior Management

More transparency

Pros

Good bottom's up training across the index and portfolio management process.
Advantage of scale to gain exposure across diff. products from index funds, ETFs, custom strategies.
Opportunity to take responsibility and learn from widely experience people.
Good work life balance.

Cons

Somewhat process and operationally driven. Too much focus on workflow, process and efficient improvement of systems rather than actual investment strategy at the PM level.
Not an entirely meritocratic work-place, easy to get lost in the day to day work and not getting noticed.

Advice to Senior Management

We have the talent at the firm, need to harness it in the right way. Some people are too comfortable with their status-quo, which hampers growth for others.
Favouritism kills morale across the board.

Pros

Some employees are talented, motivated and bright. The work environment, schedule and expectations are much less demanding than at many other firms in the industry.

Cons

Broken promises / commitments; get it in writing! Favoritism, with a preference for cheerleaders over thinkers. Accountability is not part of the culture. Employees are not really valued. Quality of employees is mixed. Weak management.

Advice to Senior Management

Almost everyone at MCM would be better off if they got extensive, regular and ongoing job related training, including management.

Pros

good pay, chance to advance, one of the largest money managers in the burgh

Cons

culture is not particularly inspiring, office is not updated ie cubes are drab gray / brown and sometimes you feel like you work for a trust not an asset manager

Advice to Senior Management

lead

Pros

If you are laid back and don't have any career goals but can work well, you are the one who needs this job.

Cons

Promotions are never given to the performing stellar employees. A verbal appreciation and a pat in the back is what you will get. The employees who are promoted are the ones who knows someone personally outside of the work environment. The legacy employees at the company WILL NOT share information with anyone - probably a job security thing!. Cross training is never a priority. Everyone is an SME at their own work. As soon as the job market opens up they will lose the good employees.

Advice to Senior Management

Please look beyond the existing upper management to promote the employees who deserve it. It seems like only the people who are already in upper management are the ones who keep getting promoted. Senior Associates all just remain senior associates!

Pros

The people are reasonable and nice enough. No screaming in the hallways as I've encountered at prior Wall Street firms.

Cons

Mellon is part of a big bank (BNYM). This means staffers spend hours of work time filling out surveys and forms from HQ in NY. This additional paperwork is a waste of time.

On the local side, many staffers wish Mellon would move to a more convenient location in the burbs for commuters. Why do we all have to commute to San Francisco when 60% of the employees live in the east bay?

Advice to Senior Management

We need to expand product mix! And why are the quarterly staff meetings off site? Seems like a waste of time for everyone to walk over.

Pros

Mellon Capital is a stable firm with strong profitability, which leads to excellent job security. Recent growth has created opportunities for advancement. The firm still retains a good bit of the flexibility and focus of a small firm, while building out the capabilities and resources of a large firm. For those already in the SF Bay Area, MCM is one of the best investment shops to work for, and FAR better than large brokerage or banking employers in the area.

Cons

Recent growth has left some gaps in organizational capabilities relative to the demands of a more complex product and client base. In the current business climate (Q3 2008), management has needed to focus on stability and client service, so resources are not being deployed to fill in these gaps. This creates some confusion and strain within the organization.

Advice to Senior Management

I disagree with the self-serving comment in the other review regarding overall compensation. I would encourage management to seek to infuse a stronger culture of excellence across all areas of the firm, not just investment modelling and portfolio management. Additionally, I feel that the firm needs to close operational gaps created from a more complex product and client mix, compared to say 5 years ago.