Pros
While most of this review is going to be negative, I do want to shout out my great colleagues that make life at Catalyst bearable. The magic of Catalyst is that it attracts some of the most passionate and talented people I have ever worked with. That is what keeps the organization going. The problem is that magic doesn’t extend to senior leadership. As a result, there are fewer of those amazing colleagues every day. Those that are not forced out by poor leadership decisions are leaving for less toxic and less dysfunctional workplaces.
Cons
If you skim through the reviews on Catalyst, the word you will see most often is “Toxic”. It’s true, Catalyst is a toxic workplace, but the toxicity is a symptom of Catalyst’s problems. It’s not the cause. The cause is selfish leadership. While this was an issue under the prior CEO, it has only been exacerbated under the current one. The new CEO does not appear to understand what Catalyst is or what it needs, and instead seems primarily interested in self-promotion. The senior leadership is now largely comprised of leaders who have failed upward or were hired through nepotism. They do not listen to their team. They only value their opinion while ignoring all others. When decisions fail, leadership doubles down rather than course-correcting. They dig deeper holes, throw good money after bad, and are never meaningfully held accountable. Missed budgets, failed initiatives, and employee attrition have no consequences at the top. Instead, blame is passed downward to staff for “not having faith” or “not executing the strategy correctly.” These are “leaders” who do not lead. They do not inspire. They do not lift others up. They cling to power, put themselves, and actively undermine the people doing the actual work. Because employees are deeply mission-driven, senior leadership exploits that commitment. Any short-term successes Catalyst achieves leave a trail of burnout in their wake: overworked, under-recognized employees who are never rewarded for their sacrifice. There are too many examples of failed leadership. One recent and widely discussed incident involved a senior employee who supported a project that was originally framed as a book centered on Catalyst research. Over time, that work was redirected to support the CEO’s personal brand, and the employee was terminated shortly after the project concluded. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Relationship Managers are routinely held to impossible standards. A disastrously mismanaged website implementation has dragged on for years, gone massively over budget, burned through multiple employees, and still does not function as intended. A nearly empty office continues to drain our coffers. Meanwhile, the CEO is largely absent, spending enormous sums on super-commuting and international travel while prioritizing her own visibility over the organization itself. As I write this, she is in Switzerland, and it is unclear whether she is promoting Catalyst or herself.