Toxic Culture (especially for women) and ZERO automation - Anonymous employee Zappi Employee Review

1.0
Jul 31, 2018
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Some truly lovey colleagues who have become friends - Free, frequent, international travel - Was a great place to begin with (sadly that changed)

Cons

- The CEO doesn't care about people (staff, clients and partners) and does not want to hear about problems or help to find any solutions. Basically there is no CEO level leadership. - The CRO is just a sales guy who embellishes to such a degree that he is no longer aware of the lines between what is true and the lies he is telling constantly - The culture is unhealthy, starting with the general language used (swearing, rough language and vulgarity), heavy drinking and open drug use. - There was an incident where pornography was being shared internally that made me very uncomfortable (this was along with female members of staff being rated on their attractiveness). Senior management did not put any systems in place to protect female staff in the future. - When female staff voice opinions, they are often labelled as 'aggressive', 'negative' or 'downers'. Someone called me a "Downer" for speaking up about something I thought was a problem. - I worked hard to build positive relationships with partners but in the end Zappi doesn't care about the partnerships and often will claim that the partners "just don't get it" and hinder the company's growth potential - The platform does not resemble in any way the sales pitches to clients. The capability of the platform is often over sold, leaving CE teams to clean up the mess on a daily basis through manual intervention. Not only is this not seen as a problem by senior management, but it seems to now be the goal. - Relationships with sample partners is seen as a necessary "means to an end", not working partnerships that need to grow as an integral function of delivery. Sample companies are referred to in a negative way on a daily basis.

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Zappi Response
6y
This post and one other triggered a lot of conversation, soul searching and action over the last year. It was hard reading and regardless of any specific circumstances we decided to address it head on. We ran a series of round-table discussions in different offices, some open invite some just with women. We also ran a survey to explore experiences when it comes to diversity and inclusion. We talked at length about the nuances of diversity, thinking about intersectionality and different personality types and how we can ensure an inclusive environment for everyone. Some outcomes of the listening exercise were… We created a diversity manifesto which we asked everyone to sign up to, so our collective standards and expectations are clear. We are continuing to embed these ideas in our everyday. We established an independent Sounding Board where anyone could report a sensitive issue (we heard some people weren’t sure what they would do) We introduced new decision making & facilitation techniques to improve inclusivity in how key decisions are made We have established a full time People & Culture team to focus on improving our employee experience - they are looking at our whole organisation through an inclusivity lens. We aren’t perfect, there are issues, for example most of our senior leaders are white men. Many people love working at Zappi but some people have found it difficult. We are going to continue to work hard to understand the variety of experiences working here and use this understanding to keep improving.

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5.0
Dec 19, 2025
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CEO approval
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Pros

Zappi is a fantastic place to work, where there's opportunity to sell market leading solutions and you feel empowered by team leaders. For a remote business, cross-functional collaboration is very effective and people are willing to offer support whenever possible. The roadmap ahead is an exciting one and senior leaders continue to remain focused on enhancing the business from a commercial perspective.

Cons

As a remote global business, there can be some time zone difficulties, but this is usually more rare than common.

2.0
May 7, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

-They take their unlimited PTO seriously and I never felt pressure to take less time off -Mental Health Awareness: 4 Mental Health Days per year plus encouraged to take more if needed -Coworkers are great and it felt good to work with great people everyday

Cons

-Recently acquired by PE group (Sumeru - 2023) and the culture has changed significantly since then (older reviews are now irrelevant) -Multiple re-structurings and mass layoffs since 2024 leave everyone scared that their job will be next -Mass exodus of qualified employees in last 6 months that will continue (including President/Founder Ryan Barry) -Low pay relative to similar companies and no raises for employees (my salary increased 25% after leaving Zappi after multiple years of 3% salary increases at Zappi) -Remote employees stay isolated (rarely get together with each other; 2024 "Holiday Party" was a gift card for remote workers) -Very little company mobility or career development (they want you heads down focusing on your role and will not support career frameworks to grow within the company) -Over 50% of our team was fired right before Christmas 2024 to cut back on costs, including strong employees of 7+ years, and the rest of the team absorbed the workload with no change in compensation or title -Because of many people leaving, support roles are often filled by inexperienced hires, meaning you have to train others while you're trying to do your own job To summarize: Zappi still rides their reputation as a "fun company" to justify underpaying its employees but, since the acquisition by Sumeru, everything has changed in an effort to cut costs everywhere. As a result, employees are leaving en masse and Zappi isn't doing anything to fix the concerns.

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