Not a great place to work or learn - Associate CIEL Capital Employee Review

Some people are okay. Office is conveniently located.

Management is very centralized. No one (even partners) can make a decision without approval from the managing partner David, and from my point of view, he is not someone who is in the office often and doesn’t work very hard (takes vacation in the middle of a deal closing). This firm seems like a pet project for the managing partner David who likes to say he runs a PE firm. How little he work is a running joke in the office which should have been a red flag right off the bat. It is a very small team but no one seems to be on the same page. The partners give contradictory instruction which results in wasted time and work. It seems like most instructions are given without much thought, and mostly just what pops into someone head at any moment without discussion. They like to say they are long term investors and have not sold a company, but the partners have said they would sell any business they own for a price. I think they have not sold a company because they buy companies that no one else wants and they are not good enough operators to grow them l businesses or show much if any operational improvement since CIEL’s investment. - Google Adrian Chandran’s (a partner at CIEL) names and you will find an interesting article on an employment lawsuit he was involved in that describes the working culture of a previous team he managed. I can attest that the culture at CIEL is similar to the one described by his previous team members. Culture: very much a “plz fix” culture. Everything is a shared document, but the partners will ask you to change even the smallest detail. They will send an email asking you to do something like change a date on a share doc as opposed to doing it themselves. There is not a real team feel - no social events and getting someone to go for a beer after work on Friday in the summer is like pulling teeth. There is no cohesion, people are left out of conversations and people do not collaborate. Everything done is to “tell a story” to management (ie. David) as opposed to getting things done. You will spend more time explaining what you are doing than actually getting thing done. Lastly, face time matters. The bosses want you there when they are there for no particular reason. Even if you come in at 7:30am and leave at 6pm , they say it doesn’t count because no one saw you at 7:30am (even if you are sending emails and working on shared documents) they want you there when they are there which is likely 11am-4-7pm. You can work hard and longer hours but they will ask you to change your schedule and life to fit theirs. They will also say in interviews that the job is hybrid and you can work from home some days, which is rarely the case. When you work for a small firm, you are betting on the people to be successful and for growth. This is not a team you want to bet on. This review could have been a lot longer if I went into detail on some of the stuff that goes down. It’s pretty pathetic and a sad excuse for a successful PE shop. Steer clear.

Small PE firm so you get to wear many hats including LBO modelling and ad-hoc operational support for portfolio company

Sometimes it can be hard to get feedback as everyone is quite busy.