Long-winded, self-aggrandising titles aimed at remunerating employees with status rather than pay are hardly a new thing.
We’ve all been exposed to the occasional “Global Head of Personal and Corporate Sales & Co-head and President of Execution Services, Emea, Asean & UK; Chair of the Steering Committee for Services, Sales and Executions, BSC, MSC, MBA, GCSE(s)” and thought to ourselves: what on earth is that? But something new is happening in the world of title inflation. Where preposterous titles in the past concentrated on over-defining job roles in excruciating detail, today’s vogue is for exactly the opposite. The more ambiguous, meaningless and mystical, the better.
Some might suggest the trend reflects an increasingly edgy and innovative corporate sector that welcomes young people and freethinkers, especially in the executive class. But I would argue it hints at something more worrying: a lack of corporate understanding about what a company’s purpose in society and the marketplace really is these days.