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0 pointsbombcar3y ago0 comments

Banks hand out VP titles like candy so that the customers think they're hot stuff and being treated well.

0 comments

People outside the finance industry really buy it too. I think it's because in most companies, VPs are above director. Only in finance, is it below.

Hermitian9093y ago

> I think it's because in most companies, VPs are above director.

Every now and again someone whose spent a career exclusively in finance gets bitten by this when transitioning into the business world. A friend once told me a story about a deal with Amazon nearly getting tanked when I coworker chewed out an Amazon VP, saying they wanted to "talk to someone who could make decisions". Took a lot of massaging to salvage that deal.

watwut3y ago

Enjoyable to imagine this. The ex finance people I work with are quite toxic towards those lower on hierarchy. Cool to hear about someone being bitten by it for once.

throwanem3y ago

That must've been a fun wall to be a fly on.

A4ET8a8uTh03y ago

Ahh, but those are not real VPs. Those are likely all AVPs ( less power, less money ) and not VPs or SVPs. Naturally, all the customer sees is a vice-president, but for HR purposes they are 'only' AVPs. I kinda hate it, because I have ridiculous title for HR purposes now myself and I am 'just' IC in real life.

edit: added quotation marks to just. I like being an IC.

jrockway3y ago

I think it depends on the bank. I worked at Bank of America and random mid-career programmers were legitimately VPs. Officer -> AVP -> VP -> Director was the title progression at the time.

sokoloff3y ago

Can confirm: I made VP at Merrill Lynch at 28 I think. It was complete BS; my resume literally says "Vice President (I have no idea why we were all VPs either)"

wonderwonder3y ago

I recently started working in finance at a F500 company and the number of vice presidents is astounding. People doing data entry are vice presidents. What's really interesting is there are 5 - 10 CIOs as well

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