Pros
It is great to work in a company that puts out to the world that it is female led. On the outside looking in, R29 has really put out a great reputation. The office is full of bright, young, creative and hard workers. You can really feel that everyone has a love for whatever job they are doing. There are a ton of perks like a beauty sale (everything is a dollar and proceeds are donated to a charity), coffee and bucha on tap in the summer and FREE health insurance, to name a few. When it is good there, it is REALLY good.
Cons
There is an intense lack of structure, training and strong management. Refinery29 likes to think that it is a "start-up" still and tries to operate as such. The ping-pong table is NOT fooling anyone. There needs to be a system put in place to regulate how departments work, rate employee performance, train in areas where employees are lacks, praise success and set expectations. Putting a whole bunch of young people in a building does create magic but it does not always create the most productive work environment. If R29 is this successful without structure imagine if they had some #unstoppable. R29 loves to rant and rave about being female led and diverse but their board members were all white men until last year (added a white female). Most of the "business" (CFO/Head of ___/CEO) is handled white men. The women who are the face of the company and the creatives are white women. The colorful variety of women that R29 uses in ads or on the website is not how the office is at all.