This document summarizes accounts from several employees at an investment bank about their difficult experiences working with a vice president named Chip Mazey. Mazey was known for verbally abusing and demeaning subordinates. He demanded perfection while not acknowledging his own mistakes. Several employees, including analysts, associates and support staff, describe specific instances of Mazey's inappropriate and unprofessional behavior, including public outbursts, impossible demands, personal insults and forcing people to work long hours with little notice. The document concludes with Jeremy Frazer, an associate who had been working with Mazey, gathering this information from coworkers but unsure of what, if anything, to do about Mazey's behavior.

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This case was compiled from various student accounts of actual events as a composite case by Gerry Yemen, Senior
Case Writer, and James G. Clawson, E. Thayer Bigelow Professor of Business Administration. It was written as a
basis for class discussion rather than to illustrate effective or ineffective handling of an administrative situation.
Copyright © 2007 by the University of Virginia Darden School Foundation, Charlottesville, VA. All rights reserved.
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reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of the Darden School
Foundation.
TOUGH GUY
A mere half-block away from the office on a pleasing fall day—the kind that caught the
attention of most New Yorkers—Jeremy Frazer, an associate at the investment bank Hudson
Smith Gordon (“Hudson”) thought about Chip Mazey, one of the vice presidents he was working
with on a negotiation. Frazer and three other members working on the deal, Jean Fenster, Rich
Patten, and Payton Edwards, had finally confided in each other about what it was like to work for
the VP.
They found themselves in a difficult situation, one that most of them thought they had no
power to change. After all, doing something about Mazey’s behavior was tricky business. First
was the fear of confronting Mazey. Another concern was the likelihood that Mazey would
probably deny his behavior or wouldn’t think that a problem existed. Then there was the unease
about escalating the discussion to include a conversation with Mazey’s boss. Going upstairs
might cause a tense situation to become even worse. Not really knowing what to do irked Frazer,
though he couldn’t exactly say why. He thought about the stories his coworkers had shared.
Bulge, Middle, or Boutique?
The lure of high risk and high reward made investment banking an attractive career for
many in the world of finance. Organizations employed investment banks to help work out
financial problems. Offering a mix of business activities, investment banks issued securities,
helped investors to purchase securities, managed financial assets, traded securities, and provided
financial advice. Investment banks came in several sizes. The largest were called “bulge bracket”
firms; the “middle market” companies tended to be regionally based; and “boutique” banks were
smaller and more specialized. As a “middle market” firm, Hudson was oriented toward financial
analysis and program trading.
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To support their security sales and trading activities, investment banks hired and
maintained large staffs of research analysts. As Frazer described:
In investment banking, you make deals for companies to raise capital—debt or
equity. Research supports that effort. By becoming expert in a particular field,
you generate more business. My firm is considered the leading expert on wireless
carriers. This reputation translates into wireless communication companies’
wanting Hudson to do research on them.
Making the Deals with a Fast-tracker
Chip Mazey had been with Hudson 10 years and followed the “kiss up, kick down”
mantra. His verbal lashings were sharp, unrelenting, and unprovoked. He had developed a nasty
reputation among analysts and associates, which was passed to the firm’s top management only
through their 360º review system. Mazey was very careful not to show his true colors when
senior management was within earshot, but as a result of the negative comments from below, his
initial promotion to vice president was postponed. The decision came as a shock to him, because
he believed he had always been submissive to upper management. Despite his poor people skills,
Mazey was a solid banker, and he received the promotion as scheduled one year later.
As a vice president, Mazey’s swagger and bravado increased exponentially. Mazey
always had trouble interacting with his peers, but after his promotion, he was more ruthless to his
subordinates than his peers. He often referred to subordinates as “you” or “analyst” and he
reminded others of his new title by telling them, “I am superior to you.” It was common for him
to yell at a subordinate in a rage, only to discover that he had made an error and there was no
problem. In such a situation, Mazey would abruptly hang up the phone when he realized his error
without a goodbye or apology. The targets of his verbal abuse disliked working with him and
tried to spend time working on projects with other bankers.
The first time Frazer worked with Mazey was on a project Mazey was heading up. “I was
assigned to this “kick-ass multibillion dollar deal,” Frazer said. “Even better than that was the
fact that the deal team included the vice president, so I was extremely excited about the
opportunity.” The vice president was in charge of leading the deal and had a reputation of being
“dynamic” and on the “fast track.” Frazer’s enthusiasm faded somewhat when he stepped into
Mazey’s office. During their initial meeting, Mazey ordered Frazer to stand “right here” and
pointed to a spot on the floor in front of his desk. The associate felt uneasy about being spoken to
in this manner, but because it was the first time he had worked with Mazey, he decided not to
mention anything—it was best to let things go. After all, investment banks had a reputation for
being infested with Type-A personalities. Some “I-bankers” had told Frazer that the biggest
challenge in an investment banking career was to manage upward.
Over the next several weeks, Frazer witnessed Mazey’s insulting and derogatory behavior
toward other associates and analysts. Tension was part of being around him. “Fortunately, I
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worked on multiple assignments, reporting to various other managers at the same time,” Frazer
said. “The dynamics on other assignments were in stark contrast to this particular one. So I
realized how much I liked the job and how well I fit in—despite being so heavily reprimanded
on a continual basis with that VP.”
On a Need-to-know Basis
That Mazey was difficult to deal with was hardly news to most at Hudson. What was
worthy of a headline was that Frazer seemed more willing than most to talk about his
supervisor’s questionable behavior. Others who had been in the organization much longer than
Frazer just learned to work around Mazey’s behavior—he was a control freak who made a lot of
money for the company and that translated into wielding a lot of power. “I became more
comfortable with some of my peers and started confiding in a few of them,” Frazer said. “I
realized my situation was hardly unique since everyone who had at one time worked with that
VP had the same story.” Things became so ugly, Frazer learned, that some full-time associates
within the group bluntly refused to work with him. Jean Fenster, an analyst who also worked
with Mazey on a few deals, described her experience:
When I first started, Chip asked me to complete an assignment which would
typically take a novice at least three days to finish. I was handed the assignment at
8 p.m. and instructed to have it finished and on his desk to look at first thing the
following morning. I sat through the night cranking on the assignment and finally
completed what I thought was a pretty comprehensive product. To my good
fortune, there were a few experienced staff members at the office during the night
who offered to vet my product. They seemed pretty happy with my work. Slightly
before dawn, I laid the finalized assignment on Chip’s desk. I thought it would be
a great idea to go home, catch up on a couple hours of sleep, and clean up. I
arrived back at the office at least 15 minutes before Chip—ready to answer any
questions.
As expected, Fenster was called over to Mazey’s desk the next morning. What followed,
however, was unexpected. He questioned every assumption she had made, countered every
explanation she offered in a derogatory manner, and nitpicked her work for an entire hour. He
then asked her to redo the work based on information he forwarded via e-mail. When Fenster sat
down at her desk to rework the material, she was shocked to learn that the VP was privy to that
additional information before he handed her the assignment, information that would have made
it easier to complete the work. She just couldn’t fathom why this information was not forwarded
to her earlier. Even more discouraging was that although she was asked to complete the work
within 24 hours, the e-mail indicated they had two weeks before it was even due. That
assignment was a nightmare, and every effort Fenster made toward working on it contributed to
the bad dream. “Each session I had with Chip included a series of derogatory and demeaning
remarks directed toward me,” she said. “From my communication skills, my accent, to the way I
dressed, this VP was critical.”
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Duck!
Fenster’s story sounded eerily familiar to Rich Patten, who described a couple of his
experiences with the vice president. During a conference call with a client, Patten was unable to
answer a question the client posed. Mazey became enraged and began screaming at both him and
the other analyst in the room. Patten said he could have helped Mazey answer the client’s
questions but Mazey’s ranting prevented him from even speaking. “The outburst resembled that
of a 2-year-old, and both of us were speechless,” Patten said. “Then, still in a rage, Chip grabbed
a calculator from his desktop and shattered it against the wall, just above my head!”
Later that day, Mazey apologized for his outburst, and Patten believed his apology was
sincere. “I had considered going to speak with the vice president who hired me about the
incident,” Patten said. “But after the apology I changed my mind,” Mazey asked the associate to
focus on the task at hand. It was 7 p.m. and there were still at least nine hours of work that had to
be completed by an 8 a.m. conference call the next morning. Mazey instructed Patten to come in
to work an hour early to prepare for the call.
“I spent the entire night working, arrived home at 4:30 a.m., slept for an hour and a half,
and then returned to the office at 7 a.m.” Patten recalled. “Gulping down my coffee, I went to
Chip’s office only to find it empty.” The 8 a.m. showtime came and went without any word from
Mazey, who eventually rolled into the office at 10 a.m. without a word. Patten asked him about
the meeting, and Mazey simply said that the meeting was changed. Patten asked another
associate who was staffed on the deal about the meeting, and found out that no such meeting was
ever planned!
Get to Work—Everyone!
Payton Edwards had another Mazey characteristic to share. “He’s very bright and
certainly very capable, but he demands complete perfection and treats subordinates as if they
were subservient to him and only him,” Edwards said. “Occasionally, this man would
compliment me for a ‘job well done.’” Yet within five minutes, Mazey would come back with
some reason why it wasn’t “quite right” and force him to redo his work. He was also known for
forcing people to do useless, menial tasks. For example, he frequently had his administrative
assistant, as well as two analysts, complete the exact same task. Mazey said he just wanted to
make absolutely sure that when all was said and done, the task was completed perfectly.
Eventually, the analysts and administrative assistant found out that they were all assigned the
same task and they were peeved. They felt like he didn’t trust them—and he didn’t. Edwards
said:
Even when it was apparent that Chip had made a mistake, he never openly
acknowledged it. One time, he denied that that there were multiple buyers on a
particular deal and created a hostile deal environment for many of the concerned
parties. He also did not like initiative-taking, much less even consider rewarding
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it. When I went to him with ideas on topics to research relevant ongoing deals, he
shot down my ideas and told me to work on what he wanted me to get done.
When it turned out later that my ideas were good, he never gave me credit and
pretended that he had thought of them himself. In fact, he went out of his way to
discredit me. For example, when I was still a very novice drinker, Chip would get
a kick out of having me order the wine at closing dinners. He wanted to embarrass
me in public because of my lack of knowledge about wine.
Chip also made fun of the secretary who came from a poorer part of the city and
where everyone seemed to have the same last name. At Christmas parties, the
support staff was not allowed to bring spouses while analysts and associates were
invited to bring their spouses. Chip told me that he did not feel that it was
necessary to “pay to feed the secretary’s husband.”
Any More Questions?
Life for support staff working for Mazey was a challenge as well. He had an incessant
need to know what every person was working on at all times. This was even more pronounced
the lower an employee was within the organizational hierarchy. His administrative assistant,
Gabriela Salaberrios, found it surprising that the VP needed to know what a secretary was typing
at a given moment. Yet Mazey had to know where all employees were at all times. He provided
Salaberrios with a cell phone so that he could contact her in the middle of the night to work on
last-minute deal items. He was never polite, and refused to take no for an answer. More than a
few times, Mazey called in the middle of the night and demanded her presence at the office.
Many times he had already sent a car to get Salaberrios before she had said yes. One time, she
was vacationing in Tunisia, and he called to demand her immediate return—it seemed that his
idea on how a deal should go from beginning to end was to be followed by all.
So What?
Proud of his accomplishments in his career so far, Frazer had sashayed into New York
with a youthful certainty that attitude would carry him. He held a job he had thought about for
some time in a firm he was convinced would offer even more opportunities. Not once had he
expected to get sidetracked over some middle-aged, disgruntled vice president. Yet that same VP
possessed many of the characteristics Frazer had expected and indeed admired on Wall Street.
Gathering all this information on Mazey had been almost cathartic. Now what, if anything,
should he do with it?
For exclusive use NMIMS, 2015
This document is authorized for use only in Individual Dynamics and Leadership by Dr. Veena Vohra , Dr. Manjari Srivastava, Dr. Gowri Joshi, Prof. Seema Rawat, Prof. Bijyanee Patnaik,
NMIMS from April 2015 to October 2015.