Run, fellow Cengagers! Roles outside of Cengage exist, at much better pay, and a clear direction for serving students.
Cengage is now an embarrassment in the industry.
6 replies (most recent on top)
When Cengage leaders open their mouths they are lying.
@m5 Exactly. PE Ownership in general is not great. However, the agenda of the PE firm matters.
Cengage pre-Apollo was never ideal, but there was an alignment between the messaging of what we said we were doing (i.e. building learner-centric learning products) and the processes and practices of the organization (i.e. investing in DEI reviews, recruiting new author talent, supporting 1e development, innovating new digital models, tackling affordability concerns with Unlimited & eBooks).
Cengage post-Apollo has abandoned all sense of purpose or responsibility to serve the needs of market it profits from. Our stated ambitions now are to "be the biggest provider of education solutions from pre-K to graduate schools." Notice the lack of focus in that statement on the needs of customers. Note also that the leadership decisions (i.e. the ousting of EJ to centralize power under her ambitious inferiors) and the processes put in place (i.e. the deprecation of funding for data sources that inform product development, the reduction of market research funding, a retreat from all quality reviews of content, the offshoring of 95% of our content team to reduce spend) in no way aligns with their stated growth intentions, nor was it done to support the needs of the market. The Apollo investment has fundamentally changed the culture and function of the organization, because their agenda is not aligned to the principles Cengage managed to maintain a tenuous hold in the years after the Thompson sale.
TLDR: PE is a cancer to companies, but Apollo is like a Stage 4 cancer when compared to the Stage 1 or 2 cancer we were dealing with before the investment.
@f2 We were bought by private equity when Thomson sold us, but Apollo didn't make their investment until April of 2023. Cengage has always been found of layoffs, but it hit another level once Apollo came on board.
@f2 a little over 2 years ago, right before Horizon started squeezing costs.
In all fairness, didn't Apollo enter the picture years ago?
Post-Thomson, things were never great.
Apollo and PE is the enemy of the people. Evil, Greedy, Arrogant.