TCW Reviews

Pros

- free delicious monthly lunches
- expensive Christmas party
- flexible work schedules and work - life balance.
- great children's Christmas party.

Cons

TCW is over all a good place to work. It just depends under which supervisor or department you work for. If you work in IT, than there are two teams here. Infrastructure and development. I work in the development side and now have a good and understanding manager. My previous manager was very incompetent and it was frustrating. On the infrastructure side, I have heard that the managers have iron fists and micromanage.

The other downside is that company hierarchical and differentiates between officers and non officers.
Non officers loose on many of the good perks such and lunches, bonuses and vacation hours

Pros

Most positions in the firm have a very good work-life balance. Despite working in finance, most people can come in at 8 and leave by 4 or 5 with no consequence. Try doing that at a Goldman or some other investment management firm.

Benefits are affordable and cover just about everything. If you're an officer, you can eat in a dinning room for officers. The cost of the meals are very reasonable. If you're an AVP, they come out to about $3.50 per meal.

Compensation varies widely in the firm. Like most places, the more you fight and the more talent you have, the more you'll get.

Cons

Instability is the major problem facing this firm.

In the last three years, the firm has lost or fired a CEO, President, Chief Investment Officer, Head of IT, Head of HR, Head of Communications, Head of Analytics, Head of Institutional Marketing, and the President of our mutual funds. Most of those losses have come in the last year and those are just the big names the firm has lost. There have been many other skilled, lower level people who have left as well.

A lot of the departures are due to the fallout from firing our former Chief Investment Officer and the ensuing lawsuit. Investors simply do not want to touch TCW when there's so much uncertainty in the courtroom and bad publicity every time its in the news. As a result, growth is limited.

The firm laid off a little over 20 (mostly lower level) people in January. That's supposed to be it for this year, but that could all change if business doesn't improve.

Advice to Senior Management

Get the lawsuit over with fast. Work on bringing stability back to key positions in the firm.

Pros

- opportunity to grow
- talented investors

Cons

- corporate restructuring
- uncertainty of firm's direction

Advice to Senior Management

- stabilize company and integrate teams

Pros

Many smart people.
Good benefits.
Historical continuity and stability through business cycles.
Direct colleagues great people.
Great entrepreneurial environment within teams managing money/products.
Easy place to hide forever if you are a mediocre, non-ambitious performer to does "just enough".

Cons

Current chaos at leadership levels has rendered firm paralyzed since mid-2009 or longer.
Next two years will be difficult given CIO defection, merger of MetWest and likely "integration sizing" to reflect smaller assets under management.
No clear strategy, mission or "hill to take" shared across the firm to rally ALL employees around a common purpose.
Old boys club atmosphere, top down (non-empowering) management approach and lack of fire in the belly of too many "nominal" leaders of the firm has the place stuck in reverse.
Don't work in a support function. You are not treated as an "expert colleague" your job is merely to "just do what I tell you to do" in support of exec management or portfolio management.

Advice to Senior Management

Time to move beyond CIO departure and lawsuit. Decide what this firm wants to be in 2015. 2012. (How about what it wants to be by the end of 2010.)

Build a strategy immediately that covers all aspects of the firm. Identify the big goals to everyone in the firm and communicate what their role is in achieving this great objective. Hold people accountable (not just PMs or Sales, but everyone) but reward success. Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. (This is OUR firm too.)

Excellence should be expected of all management disciplines -- especially executive management and the MDs running various departments - not just portfolio management. At the same time, Executive Management and Portfolio Management ... Please stop treating the non- portfolio management functions like "the help". (Good luck getting along without them.)

In a word TCW management ... Lead!

Pros

A lot of things are shifting in TCW but with it comes great opportunity and rewards. TCW remunerates well and is still well respected in the marketplace. They have good benefit plans.

Dining area is amazing!!!

Cons

Although changing, there are still elements of an old boy's club in TCW. Departments are monolithic but that is also changing.

Advice to Senior Management

Overhaul the corporate information technology group

Pros

Wide variety of responsibilities at lower levels can give one a great deal of experience in many areas, such as investment analysis, compliance, operations and so on.
Promote from within quite a bit, especially at the junior levels, so it is a good place for college graduates to start. One's first job, which could last for two or three years, may be so easy - and boring - that you could do it as a high school sophomore (pricing, settlements), but by just being on time and doing a great job with a great attitude gets one noticed for promotion to analyst.

Cons

groups are run as fiefdoms; get in a poorly run group - there are a few - and life can be miserable within that group. If the group is profitable, nothing will change and one can only hope/try for an internal lateral transfer or promotion. If the group is not profitable, the senior MD's will leave, eventually, but the new MD will likely clean house and bring in his own, so one is still on the bottom rung.
weak central managment leads to uneven promotion opportunities, so getting promoted to analyst IN THE RIGHT department is more important than seeking the first opportunity that appears in just any department.

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of the few MD's who do a poor job of running their departments

Pros

TCW rewards talented and deserving staff generously in terms of base pay and bonuses. In general, pay is slightly above the market averages.
TCW also maintains open communication lines internally. This allows the firm to be agile and respond to the market easily at all times.
TCW is a great place to work if you are creative and likes to think of new ways to do things. The culture is geared to encourage innovation and rewards are provided appropriately.

Even in tough times, employee morale is still quite high and the firm has not employed indiscriminate mass lay-offs as compared to other companies in the finance industry.

Cons

The culture demands a high level of flexibility on the staff. If you thrive in highly structured environments, TCW will be a demanding place to work for.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep maintaining and providing clear communication throughout the organization.