What’s going on at Rede Partners?
Have seen a few discussions on Rede Partners here and know a few people who are there / have worked there. Interested to hear whether others have had similar experiences - a sweatshop with a pretty toxic culture and a weird superiority complex.
A few recurring themes:
- Very cliquey culture, with a core group of “Rede lifers” who seem to have disproportionate influence. Your experience can depend heavily on who your manager is and how close they are to that group.
- Poor management of workload and client expectations. Late nights and weekend work common even for things that aren’t genuinely time-critical. Classic case of work sitting with associates/mid-levels for most of the day before being pushed down to analysts at 10pm (some are obviously much worse than others, as usual in the industry).
- Similar disconnect on Fridays - mid-levels leaving around 5pm every Thursday, being unresponsive and then chasing Friday morning.
- Protected evenings introduced recently to improve WLB, which sounds good on paper, but ultimately judged for actually taking them. Pretty pointless if the underlying culture doesn’t support it.
- More broadly, seems to be a culture where some people expect flexibility for themselves (which is then talked about behind their back), but don’t extend the same.
- Junior role seems very process/admin-heavy.
- High analyst churn and seemingly poor junior retention.
- Weak POC representation. Have also heard concerns around the very similar backgrounds of analysts who are let go.
- Doesn’t seem like any training for mid-level managers on how to manage either upwards or downwards. Feedback also only ever flows almost entirely one way.
- Despite the work generally sounding less complex than PE, M&A or IB in general (+ others), the culture seems surprisingly hierarchical and there appears to be a superiority complex in some pockets.
Obviously experiences will vary, but taken together it sounds less like the usual “finance has long hours” issue and more like a broader culture and management problem.
Vouching for the cliquey culture which is exacerbated by poor junior hiring imo, personality hires probably contribute to the sweatshop issue
Interesting point on hiring. Does seem like the culture becomes pretty self-perpetuating when the same small group has so much influence over who progresses or who they want to get fired
The big problem with IR / placement agents is that too often who gets the job is influenced by how someone looks. The very sales-y looking personas, photogenic people who dress in bland solid colors are prioritized at getting the jobs.
When you filter for that right off the back, it cuts out a lot of people. Class IB and investing seats in PE don’t filter for that the same way and are often more diverse than places like Rede.
Agreed, although PM and coverage (sales) probably has some differences. Interpersonal skills clearly important, but that shouldn’t translate into hiring the same type of person repeatedly. Particularly when it just reinforces an already cliquey culture
Hi churn at the junior level. Comp in London is quite good from what I've heard, but you will work hard. Secondaries is basically banking hours, Project Management is usually 11/12pm everyday - perhaps not bad if you're at a sweaty IB and getting underpaid and are comfortable with the hours. Agree on the 'cliquey' people, but at the same time it is a solid place to get fundraising exposure and project management skills. Rumour on the street is especially after Campbell got acquired, Asante and Rede are trying to restructure and prepare for an inevitable sale process and I've seen on WSO that Roths and Moelis have been eyeing them for a while. Not sure how their Dubai / APAC build out went and it's been discussed on here that the US franchise is lagging behind. Personally, unless you're an European MM GP, not sure why you'd hire them in different geographies.
Agree on the exposure and comp, but don’t think either necessarily excuses poor management or culture. Most people coming from IB are hardly strangers to long hours, but there’s a difference between genuinely demanding work and avoidable late nights caused by poor planning or people sitting on things all day
Can't speak much to the actual internal culture. Just have a few friends and acquaintances who worked there and they all basically said similar things, they all left within 1.5 yrs
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