operations associate

fund accountant

system programmer

associate

senior fund accountant

Brown Brothers Harriman

Low compensation. BBH does not offer a competitive salary like other banks. The bonuses are discretionary and less than 10% of your salary. Many of my coworkers did not get a bonus after working long (60) hours and weekends the previous year.  

There was a recent college graduate who worked there part time as a consultant for almost 2 years making $17 per hour until she was able to receive a full time offer of 40K. I also met another employee who was making 80k + 10% bonus after 16 years of employment at BBH. 

If you get laid off, there is not a severance package unless you work for the firm for at least 2 years. The employer’s matching contribution to your 401k is not fully vested unless you work for the firm at least 5 years, otherwise BBH will remove the funds from your brokerage fidelity account. If you are stuck at work after 8pm, the firm won’t even buy you pizza or pay for a cab to take you home. 

Long hours: 8:30 to 7pm on slow days.
 
No room to grow. If you want to move up, you will need to be there for many years and getting a promotion is unusual. Old employees are frustrated and hate their daily routine because they have been stuck in the same role for years. If your boss hates her/his job, it will be very difficult for you to succeed. 

High turnover. During employment there, almost 24 months, I saw at least twenty people either get laid off, fired or quit voluntarily. BBH specializes in hiring temporary employees, “consultants”, at low wages and maybe one out of fifty get full-time direct employment. This way the company avoids providing other benefits, such as health and dental care, 401k, etc. I met many ex-employees who confirmed that BBH was not a good place to work. Every employee makes mistakes on a daily basis since most individuals are new and do not know what they are doing due to the high turnover and the long time that it takes to train people.

Poor management. The managers there lack managerial skills and cannot communicate effectively. Some of them did not even go to college but they have been there for many years. My manager acted like a puppy dog willing to do whatever for her boss. There is so much unnecessary politics since BBH is the oldest private bank. 

Hostile conservative work environment. The managers set you up in many ways so you make mistakes and they have evidence in case they want to get rid of you later. My last six months there I was put under so much pressure because my boss needed to use an excuse to get rid of me. She would say one thing and the team leader the opposite. Do not trust anyone in management because they will stab you in the back in order to keep their job and be part of the boss gang. If you suggest an improvement using technology that your boss is not familiar with, you will be ignored because they do not like change. 

Break/vacation requests often denied. In 2014, I was denied four vacation requests and ended up carrying over 10 days. Unfortunately, I could not attend important family events. During the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, my boss told us that no one was going to be able to take those days off including her. Once the day came, she did not show up and sent an email that she was going to be working remotely. I worked almost every holiday in 2013 and 2014. Another issue was taking regular breaks. Most coworkers ate lunch at their desks to avoid conflicts with our boss. If you wanted to go out, you were expected to be back in less than half an hour, which was impossible since you have to wait for the elevators. I sent an email to HR and complained, but never got a response.  

Old technology. BBH uses trading systems from the late 70s. Imagine placing trades upwards of $1 billion in a system like Microsoft command dos. It was so easy to make errors. Unfortunately, BBH is known for having customized systems to meet their clients’ needs. This exposes you to learning weak internal manual controls and simple procedures that will not help you in your next job.

PROS:
Some good people
Location is easy for commutes 
Huge desk and great view
Volunteer activities (only for those who can get time off from work)
Convenient cafeteria on the 3rd floor
Good place to learn a new industry
Access to know worldwide clients who have been around for decades

At first, I thought this was a great place to work at, but that quickly changed.  Initially, one would think the work environment is friendly and laid back, but you will soon realize it is hostile and promotes instilling fear tactics.  There's a significant turnover ratio and people being fired (lay off).  I'm not an HR expert, but I think there are quite a bit of temp employees in every group / team.  Literally, every group (even if there are only 3 people) has a temp.  This, it is very difficult to maintain a sound group structure and workflow when they let them go and rehire another temp, especially since the group doesn't know about it until the last minute.  They are losing quite customers and high-net worth clients as their conservative models are not changing with the current flow of markets.  Changing strategies are too difficult due the partnership heirarchy.  Hence, their next move is to outsource to Poland.  They are not the big players in the Finance industy and many big player competitors are surprised they are still in business.  If it wasn't for their Custody business, they would probably be out of business already.  If you choose to work here, make sure you think about long-term strategies as your days here might be limited.  If you have family or dependent relatives, it might not be the best place for you.  I've never seen entire departments just closing their business nor Managing Directors being let go due to their Divisions being shut down.  If anything, know that the pay is quite low (such as entry-level standards) compared with the competitors.  If you live in New York City, you definately should be able to find a better paying job even if you are only a secretary or in customer service.

Get to my job around 10:30 and leave around 6:30 sometimes around 7:00. Depending if I'm working in systems or the Fax Management System, I will go into either. Systems includes an overwhelming amount of work to the point of going to the bathroom is frowned upon. Fax Management System (FMS) is pretty much data entry all day long, reading faxes and inputting the information into the FMS system. 

Although the overwhelming amount of work, I've learned a lot about having a strong work ethic and being resilient in times where you cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

Management needs to step up and listen to the employees' demands because there is WAY too much employee turnover. The turnover is really detrimental to job efficiency because so many employees are leaving, the group is almost always understaffed and those with some experience cannot learn because everyone is too busy doing their own jobs. New employees are thrown into a fire and are expected to learn pretty much on their own. 

Other than the chaotic work, co-workers are pretty down to Earth and keep the work environment somewhat alright. 

The hardest part of the job is being able to adapt and learn from minimal training. It is extremely difficult to multi-task and a lot is expected from you from day 1.

The most enjoyable part of the job is the work environment. Although it is pretty disorganized and chaotic, the people and culture is really relaxed.

I learned a lot working in the international unit of the operations area. I learned about currency exchanges, better understanding of diversity issues, improved my time management skills and achieved an better understanding of corporate actions in general.

I presently work the 3rd shift and being in a international group has allowed for a greater amount of coverage when dealing with clients from different time zones.

In my group because we work on the night shift we are a close knit group who try to help each other whenever necessary and we assist the day shift in all aspects of the job to make sure there is no problems within the unit.

The most enjoyable part of the job is when we receive comments from the clients stating how well we are doing handling their accounts. It nice to hear positive things it helps to make the day and the job go better.

The hardest part of the job is when we receive preliminary information about an corporate action and when we go out to our subcustodian and they have no additional information and the client wants us to provide them with information we don't have available as of yet. We usually can appease their complaints and move forward but sometimes it can be problematic.

In my present job management is usually attained within the company which is a good because it gives people the objective to try harder to attain movement to the next level.

I would not recommend this company to anyone. The interviewing process was a total nightmare and so was the "onboarding process." The work culture was cold. Given their return to office policy, I personally did not get the sense that the company was people focused. The days when I was in office, my manager sat with her back to me most of the day. The opportunity "to learn" didn't improve just because I was in office. 

The job description was definitely misleading because there were responsibilities that I never participated in in my day-to-day. There were too many times when I sat around doing close to nothing, even though I had asked for a training schedule in January. I would also ask my team if I could provide them with any assistance, and the answer was always the same - No.

Any trainings that was scheduled were always rescheduled. I'm not sure how you can expect an external employee could be "more senior" in this role when adequate training was not provided. I don't know any new hire that can start a new job without some level of learning. This job gave me anxiety, but I was taken aback when my contract was ended due to my temporary living arrangements. I was given a totally ridiculous excuse for why my contract was cut short, but since NJ is an At Will state, their excuses are allowed to be ridiculous. 


A day in the life of a client service would consist of fielding and responding to a variety of client inquiries and escalated issues that would include serving as a point of contact for senoir level client contacts.  This usually led to coordinating follow up conference calls and client meetings to ensure that all clients expectations and daily deliverables were met accurately and timely.  In order to do so I was expected to have a sound knowledge of all BBH product and services.  In order to satisfy clients needs, I would have to develop key intern relationships within BBH in order to aid in the resolution of client requests.  An interesting paradox of the job is that the most difficult part of the job was usually the most rewarding.  Training new employees tested my patience from time to time but after some time and at a certain comfort level the students would soon become the teachers.  I love learning new things and having the ability to bounce things off everyone I work with I found to be the most effective way to manage my day.

It may have been just the two teams I worked for, but there isn't much social interaction during the day. Coworkers who sit within earshot (even across from me) would send questions or info on their computer messaging program. They do organize after work events, however, but be ready for the need to go hours at a time without talking out loud.

Management is fantastic, they take time to help employees understand new information and encourage growth, while not pressuring you into new data that you aren't ready for. Very understanding regarding any need for sick time or tardiness, provided it isn't a consistent issue.

The group I worked for (NAV Hub) had very long hours some nights (shift was 10:30AM - 7PM), but I would often find myself there past 8. If you're looking for OT pay, this is the place for you.

Overall great, would recommend for anyone interested in finance. pay is not great but fair.

As part of Corporate Actions team, on a daily basis I am responsible for managing all mandatory and voluntary corporate action events and interact on a daily basis with Relationship Managers to make the appropriate elections on clients' behalf. 
Also, I review and reconcile daily break reports between BBH custody and our Sunguard Addvanage Accounting System and make sure they are resolved on time.
The team is short staffed at the moment and there is a high volume of daily work, which permits for short or no lunch breaks. It is a deadline driven environment and the long hours are the hardest part of my job. But this has been a good challenge for me as I have learned a lot about Corporate actions events.

A typical day at the office starts with reviewing emails that have been sent and responding. Trial balance are a normal to ensure enough funds are available to cover purchases. Speaking with clients and new ones  on a daily basis by helping serve their financial needs.
With all the top level management backing their staff gave a great sense of pride. Worked towards a goal of completing tasks and deadlines on time and sometimes very last minute issues to attend to. At times jugglig more that one project. The most enjoyable part of the job was that I was instrumental to changes and learned more about the culture of the business and help grow with the company.

A typical day at work is processing my client's request, updating company's asset management database, assigning assets to user's, tagging equipment with work orders, forwarding tickets to IT, and supplying the hardware necessary for a production environment.
Receiving replenished hardware and software by updating purchase order database. Learned various aspects of the position by using different databases in order to process and keep track of the company's assets. The hardest part of the job is during lease return of the company's assets which have to be returned to the leasing company which can vary from 100-300 assets. The most enjoyable part of the job is successfully finalizing my lease return while dealing with the day-to-day operations of the business.

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