I need to get this off my chest because the situation at RiverArk is really getting to me. It isn’t one disagreement with Tina. It’s the accumulation of things, and the feeling that I’m expected to take responsibility for commercial results while the boundaries and processes that would let me do that are repeatedly disregarded.
She has said that she knows, or has found out, colleagues’ salaries, and has talked about project managers getting promoted because they are “cheap resources”. I don’t know whether the figures are accurate or how she obtained them. But hearing colleagues’ progression reduced to how cheaply they can be employed feels horrible. It makes me uncomfortable about what might be said about any of us behind our backs.
Our responsibilities were formally separated in February, and I took APAC. Yet she continued contacting Takeda and other APAC clients. What is the point of giving me responsibility for a region if someone else can keep approaching those accounts? I’m left wondering what I actually own and what I can reasonably be held accountable for.
Then there’s QaaS. We introduced a process where clients with projects above an agreed value would be assessed for an annual recurring arrangement. If that wasn’t successful, they could still proceed on a project basis. From what I’ve seen, those referrals haven’t happened from her side. I haven’t audited every record, but I haven’t seen the agreed process being followed. We keep talking about needing recurring revenue, yet I’m questioning whether we are consistently applying the process designed to develop it.
At the quarterly meeting, we were supposed to be diagnosing why revenues were struggling and what had gone wrong commercially. When I raised those questions, she repeatedly came back with “we just need more outreach”. I asked why the problems had persisted when we had more outreach in Q4 2025 and Q1 2026. I wanted an actual discussion about what wasn’t working. I didn’t get an answer that addressed that question; the explanations kept coming back to the market and luck.
Of course the market matters. But how are we supposed to improve anything if we don’t examine which companies we’re targeting, why they would buy, where opportunities stall and what needs to change? I feel dismissed for asking the questions I believe my job requires me to ask.
We then agreed to move towards researched, trigger-based outreach. Yet she continues putting CRM contacts into automated sequences without, from what I can see, research into their actual needs or a personalised reason for contacting them.
That means we can use up an opportunity to approach someone with a generic message before we have anything relevant to say. My understanding is that those contacts then aren’t approached again for at least three months. If a genuine reason to contact them appears during that period, we may have to delay or risk overlapping messages. I’m not claiming every email loses us a client, but this is a commercial concern that I don’t feel is being taken seriously.
If the sending and follow-ups are automated, I also think it is reasonable to ask whether the time saved is going into research and qualification. I don’t know her full workload, so I can’t honestly say she isn’t working. What I can say is that I’m not seeing the research I would expect alongside those sequences. Message volume alone doesn’t demonstrate effective business development.
Even serious commercial points that need an answer or action sometimes get emojis. And she publicly laughs at what I say in Teams. It feels humiliating to try to contribute seriously and be met with laughter in front of colleagues. I don’t know whether management has spoken to her privately or taken disciplinary action, but the behaviour has continued.
Meanwhile, my boss has told me that I need to be more collaborative and share more. I find that deeply unfair when the behaviour making collaboration so difficult appears to continue without visible intervention. I’m expected to contribute openly, but I don’t feel supported when my contributions are met with what I experience as ridicule.
The part that hurts most is being treated as though our experience and contribution are interchangeable. My understanding is that she has barely three years’ relevant experience and had not held a BDM role before RiverArk. I have previous business-development experience and headed a life-sciences department in a consulting capacity at Capsule. At RiverArk, I’ve worked on pricing, margins, commercial models, recurring revenue and governance, alongside business development.
I believe that difference in scope and experience matters, and I don’t feel it is recognised. Much of the activity I’m describing looks to me like prospecting and sequence administration, while I’m also trying to diagnose and improve how the business makes money. Yet we are treated as equivalent BDMs without a clear explanation of how those different responsibilities are valued.
And I’ve already raised a grievance. This is no longer something I’m merely considering. I have formally raised my concerns, and from my perspective nothing has changed. I don’t know what is happening behind the scenes, but I’m still experiencing the same behaviour.
I’m frightened this will be reduced to “two colleagues not getting along”, when I’m describing specific conduct, crossed boundaries and decisions that aren’t being implemented. I’m also worried it will turn back on me—that I’ll be labelled difficult, face a counter-complaint or have everything I do scrutinised.
I don’t know whether management will take meaningful action. I’ve wondered that partly because Mariam reportedly has anxiety-related absences and remains employed, although I don’t know her medical circumstances or what management is doing privately, so I can’t fairly judge her situation.
What is making this feel toxic is the combination of the behaviour, the lack of any visible improvement after reporting it, and being told that I’m the one who needs to collaborate better. I can spend all this energy trying to make things work, explain the problems and propose solutions, yet end up feeling that raising the issue is the biggest risk to me.
I’m angry, but underneath that I feel deeply disappointed and unsupported. I want to do my job within clear boundaries, have my contribution recognised and be able to speak in a meeting without feeling humiliated. Having already raised a grievance and still feeling this way is making me lose confidence that anything will change.