Story 446. You know it. Saying that “blatant cronyism and nepotism were the order of the day, with personal relationships and loyalty taking precedence over competence, accountability, and basic standards of conduct” barely even scratches the surface. It is profoundly, rotely abject.
And then there is this.
It happened one summer. A group head walked over to his young pup, dropped a casual word, and informed him he was being made director. Just like that. He was sliding into the seat left warm by a director who had recently resigned.
Formal interviews were conducted, of course—there’s always a script to follow—and a more able, highly competent female candidate was right there in contention.
Except the interviews were a complete sham. Because at the end of the day, that entire group is populated solely by people handpicked by the group head, carefully cultivated completely outside the formal HR process.
Peers pulled the hiring Managing Director aside and laid it out plain: the pup wasn’t ready for a leadership role. The other candidate was far more suited. The hiring MD’s response? His hands were tied.
Imagine that if you can. If that’s true, you aren’t part of leadership at all. You’re just a puppet standing on stage, planted there to create a convenient, insulating layer of separation for a repeat wrongdoer.
Even the junior staff didn’t consider the guy any great shakes; they were the ones who constantly had to stop and explain basic banking and risk concepts to him.
So why him?
The guy was =outspoken about needing a visa or a green card. And everyone knows you can’t get that unless you are classified as having a unique skillset.
What better justification could you possibly engineer than handing an entire team to a junior favorite and calling him a czar?
By now, everyone in the building knows HR is complicit in this dirty business.
An earlier post on this platform suggested the Board should look at patterns of complaints against specific leaders, cross-referencing them with visa sponsorship records. That is a prime candidate for a deep, unfiltered probe.
Because this is a group where CIS needs to be aptly deployed. Junior investigators simply won’t do for a job like this. Unless, of course, a cover-up is the actual goal.