U.S. Trust Reviews

Pros

Great people, competent platform, client loyalty

Cons

Micromanagement, second guessing, inability of senior leadership to truly drive the business

Pros

Excellent resources; competent, capable co-workers, good clients.

Cons

Significant negative press relating to parent company (Bank of America)

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to work on strengthening the U.S. Trust brand as a distinct line of business (separate from B of A and Merrill Lynch).

Pros

Competitive salary and bonuses. Benefits are extensive. Life balance and work environment are both commendable. Experience and network of working at a private bank is invaluable.

Cons

Downtown locations can make for a regular traffic and/or commuting headache. Due to the exclusive nature of private banks, opportunities can be few and often have a long list of very competitive candidates

Advice to Senior Management

Good leadership. All management are respectful and supportive. Staying in touch and connected with associates is important.

Pros

Bright people, good tools, great clients, well-respected name, reasonable compensation, sophisticated process, strong infrastructure, reasonable account loads, good mix of talent

Cons

Sometimes there are turf wars with Merrill advisors, branch brokers or premier bankers that can mean that too much time is wasted.

Advice to Senior Management

Break down the silos between the various advisors serving individual clients. It is difficult to operate with some of the turf wars.

Pros

Decent platform to offer to clients

Cons

Lots of long faces as it is no longer a happy place to be

Advice to Senior Management

Wake up

Pros

New York City, New York based

Cons

Inability to change with technicale advances

Advice to Senior Management

Hire knowlegable instead of how much money they have

Pros

The manager that I report to directly listens to my concerns
Scheduling is flexible to accommodate family obligations
Friendly support staff

Cons

Highly outdated Technology
Arduous process to get direct tech support
Understaffed which creates great amounts of stress on employees
Support structure to divisive and no direct means to contact local technical support members
Helpdesk outsourced to India and are required to read directly from script for 1st level technical support
Groups are rarely willing to provide cost centers to provide necessary services

Advice to Senior Management

Re-organize ET&D to reflect a customer service based process that reflects the challenges that such a large organization faces.
Also spend some money on your Flagship site Employees are embarrassed by the state of the UST headquarters.

Pros

Excellent, extremely competent co-workers, better than average work/life balance for a financial institution

Cons

Absolute chaos. You never know what is coming next. There's no effort to retain superior employees.

Advice to Senior Management

They're still trying to merge very different cultures but instead of finding the best of each and incorporating those, it's an erratic rag-tag effect. ALSO -- the best people aren't necessarily kept on, but they admittedly try for "balance" between different entities, so a superior performance is NO guarantee of performance or even keeping your job.

Pros

- Good opportunities for people who push to develop themselves
- Good benefits and time off - especially for maternity leave
- Management tries to address problems and listen to employees

Cons

- Bank of America is just too big to function efficiently
- Lots of policies and procedures because somebody screwed up
- Compliance is often accused of running the firm
- Management is often not very informed or intelligent but not hostile or mean

Advice to Senior Management

Combine U.S. Trust and Merrill Lynch to avoid the loss of business and infighting between the two

Pros

HIstory of the FIrm. Unrivaled Fiduciary Platform

Cons

Name not as well recognized in Atlanta.

Advice to Senior Management

Great Job! Keep it up.