Dynamic firm! - Manager LeapFrog Employee Review

LeapFrog unites thinkers of tomorrow, those who embrace new progressive ideas of doing good and those who don't live for the sake of greed only. You would meet folks from all walks of life, very diverse, very friendly and down-to-earth people you would call friends at the end of the day. The level of thinking is top-notch and you will see that your humanistic aspirations go up as well, as a result of such new-wave environment. One gets to enjoy global retreats, work-life flexibility, office lunch, and top people - here I mean not necessarily in terms of formal education (which might easily be a mere piece of paper) but rather in terms of their true quality that shows in world-changing ideas and inspiring conversations.

As the firm is relatively young, even though it might produce top-quartile PE performance, it does not pay near the top quartile comp (which means the promise of top-quartile returns is not in line with the logical conclusion that it would translate in top-quartile benefits); pension is not even worth mentioning. That is the primary reason why it's difficult to attract top talent and difficult to keep younger people.

- Extremely talented non-partner staff, with top tier backgrounds - Growing rapidly - Offices across three continents means lots of international travel -- HQ is in Sydney! - Dedicated mentors for Fellows

- Compensation in bottom quartile for PE firms of comparable AUM and focus - Promises the moon and more in recruiting, then fails to deliver. Hires McK / BCG / Bain / JPM / GS type backgrounds for data entry, formatting documents and photocopies - Markets as an "impact" firm but impact is not an internal priority, and not seen in investments. Only important to leaders when it's time to fundraise. - Hierarchical and political. Decisions are based on "power of the story" and not data, and thus next steps require painful consensus building and string-pulling. Top-heavy structure means strategic decisions take a very long time; LeapFrog has the turning radius of an ocean liner. Junior staff have no ability to correct or make suggestions to senior management, no matter what their model or industry report may say. If a partner says it, it's right. - Male leaders get to skip conference calls to put kids in the bath, but female leaders... actually I don't know, since there are no female leaders - Obsessed with PR. Don't bother making a Google alert. The CEO will email you if his name ever comes up in a news article, and ask you to Tweet it. Ridiculous for a PE firm to have 10% of FTE devoted exclusively to PR, on top of IR staff. Why spend time making investments, when instead you could talk about hypothetically making investments?