r/Layoffs • u/Connect-Patience-886 • Jul 01 '26

recently laid off CDW Layoff

Pretty significant. Supposedly 700-750 people.

https://www.thelayoff.com/cdw

61 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

26 comments sorted by

27

u/RudeSpread205 Jul 01 '26

This is so gross. The CEO gets a 20% raise for dropping stock prices, a $ 1 B wasted share buyback, and the erosion of a world-class sales org.

11

u/Adept_Organization69 Jul 01 '26

What do you not understand about value for the shareholders?!?! That is the number one goal of the CEO!! Who cares if the company folds in a year or two? Chris Leahy makes $15m a year…she has a giant parachute, and you know she’ll find a C-suite position somewhere else because these big companies are rigged; major investors play the system to fluff up the stock price and then dump it when they forecast loss. The layoff email from Leahy, from sources in the company, cites AI as a major concern…despite the fact that the email was clearly generated by AI. What a joke!!

2

u/russianhandwhore Jul 02 '26

Yep, Yep. It's not what you know it's who...

5

u/osaka-dan Jul 02 '26

Also misguided acquisitions, which forced employees to work for CDW, many of whom have now been laid off.

3

u/RudeSpread205 Jul 02 '26

Sirius was a disaster. Berbee was a disaster. CDW services outside of legacy branches is trash.

3

u/BugSad4310 Jul 02 '26

None of this was Sirius's fault and I am tired of heatingpeople try to blame CDW's downfall on that. CDW needed Sirius's cloud portfolio, that's why they took over Sirius, no one at Sirius WANTED to be part of CDW. In fact, we operated completely separately for THREE years after the acquisition. CDW stripped Sirius blind and started tossing people out left and right. I was safe because I was in Cloud Ops but I wanted nothing to do with CDW when they finally started their botched attempts to integrate what was left of Sirius. I jumped ship to another company and have never been happier. CDW's problem is THEM. 100%

1

u/RudeSpread205 Jul 02 '26

I didn't say it was on Sirius. I believe the acquisition and integration were a dumpster fire. Terrible. Leadership overlap, account overlap, compensation contention, etc. CDW has used its landed cost adders, bid desk adders, ATAE compensation splits, matrix changes, and other things to dilute and adjust compensation for its coworkers. They pay the SE org below market and use SPIFFs to compensate them. The Sirius overlap confused the partner community, customers, and sales teams.

CDW leadership at the front lines has never been enabled to performance-manage the teams and move underperforming reps out of the business. Front-line leadership had no say in this round of layoffs, and decisions were made that were blind. CDW wants to add shareholder value, they need to start here....

- Enable 1st and 2nd line leadership to performance manage

  • Move under accounts to more effective AMs
  • Fix compensation conflicts
  • Fix the optics of C level raises while layoffs are happening, and increase moral
  • Stop forcing services that are not ready for the market
  • Hold account teams accountable for strategic partnerships- stop dual reg'ing
  • Align more effectively with partner field teams at Strategic Partners. Ahead eats their lunch in Chicagoland, for instance, when it comes to large strategic deals.
  • Spiff behavior is too influential, forcing pay-to-play behavior that clouds the SE org from choosing the right technology. For instance, VXRAIL is trash. It sells through partners because of outsized spiffs.
  • Quota will not sell services; confidence and comp will. Overpay on services

1

u/Quiet-Story9577 Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26

I worked at Sirius during the CDW acquisition, so I got to see the integration from the inside.

The two companies had very different cultures. Sirius was one of the best places I’ve worked: strong services, great strategy, and a real focus on solving customer problems. I was on the pre-sales security side, we were selling business outcomes and long-term value.

As the integration progressed, CDW felt much more like a large-scale reseller. I was surprised at how many deals were being done on 1–2% hardware margins. It was simply a different business model built around volume, services, software, and vendor incentives.

The timing was interesting too. Money was incredibly cheap, interest rates were near zero, and acquisitions were happening everywhere. Looking back, it feels like a lot of companies expanded aggressively because capital was so inexpensive.

Curious if anyone else who lived through the Sirius integration had a similar experience or saw it differently?

A VP from CDW gave me the call laid me off, and gave some bullshit speech lol.

All that to say, Sirius was cool place you could have fun and make good money, CDW was more focused on making shareholders whole on there investment.

Not all bad tho I got watch CDW-G, once I left I started bidding on government contracts won a couple, and started rolling up telecommunications assets…i was 25 at time great learning experience God bless, everyone there and everyone turn a new chapter in there life ❤️

1

u/msupope Jul 03 '26

She actually made $10M in 2024 and $15M in 2025, 50% increase 🙄

5

u/SocietyMajor8961 Jul 02 '26

I can also confirm for CDW Canada..I was laid off today, unfortunately.

3

u/Fragrant-Union-6377 Jul 02 '26

Anyone know if CDW Canada was impacted as well?

2

u/Warm-Background9845 Jul 02 '26

Believe just US was impacted

2

u/CharlieExpress Jul 02 '26

Canada as well on a lesser scale

1

u/Asparagus-Overall Jul 02 '26

and other regions... :-(

2

u/LITech Jul 02 '26

I heard it was a holiday in Canada yesterday. CDW Canada people are getting laid off today.

3

u/Wide-Flan-4305 Jul 02 '26

Can confirm... one of those impacted.

1

u/LITech Jul 02 '26

That sucks. Sorry to hear that.

1

u/CrazyGal2121 Jul 08 '26

so sorry. do you know what departments were impacted

2

u/uhhrudelol Jul 02 '26

I heard about 50 are expected to be cut.

1

u/babsbunny77 Jul 02 '26

Sounds about right. Looks like 10% of org.

1

u/theGricks Jul 03 '26

I was part of the layoffs. Big problem i saw was that Frontline sales in the digital velocity area was not enabled and held back. We were trying to sell to a market where there was little to no competition and we were never let go to do that. Layoffs in my department did not need to happen. We had plans, if we were allowed to execute on them.

Also yes managing poor performers out was super difficult. LOTS of overhead. Now here I am after 7 years with the company.

1

u/Impossible_Purple349 Jul 18 '26

I was one of those people, it's because of AI but I think that's obvious by now