Ares Management Corporation

HQ
Los Angeles
Total Offices: 28
2,135 Total Employees
Year Founded: 1997

What's the Company Culture Like at Ares Management Corporation?

Updated on September 08, 2026

This page summarizes recurring themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Ares Management Corporation and has not been reviewed or approved by Ares Management Corporation.

What's the company culture like at Ares Management Corporation?

Strengths in collaboration, ownership, and collective pride are accompanied by challenges around workload intensity, managerial style, and perceived fairness in advancement. Together, these dynamics suggest a values‑forward, high‑performance culture with meaningful opportunity and support, tempered by team‑level variability in hours, management consistency, and equitable progression.

Key Insight for Candidates

Defining pattern: Award‑winning, values‑branded culture promising collaboration and ownership, but a recurring execution gap—lean staffing, long hours, and limited tolerance for negative feedback. This matters because the promise of empowerment can feel hollow without consistent managerial support and sustainable workloads.

Evidence in Action

  • CREST Values As Compass The CREST values—Collaboration, Responsibility, Entrepreneurship, Self‑Awareness, and Trustworthiness—are codified as everyday behavior standards across investment groups. This shared language guides decisions and feedback, reinforcing expected conduct and giving employees clarity on how to earn trust, recognition, and advancement.
  • Ares in Motion Volunteering Ares in Motion (AIM) supported 930+ nonprofits with 7,400 volunteer hours in 2023. This visible, structured service channel lets employees live firm values, deepen community ties, and build pride and cross-team relationships beyond core workloads.

Positive Themes About Ares Management Corporation

  • Collaborative & Supportive Culture: Colleagues are often seen as kind and supportive, and cross‑team collaboration is explicitly promoted as a core advantage. The firm highlights a non‑siloed, teamwork‑first approach underpinned by its CREST values.
  • Accountability & Ownership: Employees are encouraged to take an ownership approach and operate as leaders within an entrepreneurial environment. Roles are described as offering significant responsibility and empowerment to drive change and thought leadership.
  • Recognition, Pride & Shared Success: Pride in the firm and shared achievement are recurring themes, supported by public recognition as a strong workplace. Leadership messaging emphasizes celebrating wins together and viewing culture and team as key assets.

Considerations About Ares Management Corporation

  • Workload & Burnout: The environment is characterized as fast‑paced with heavy workloads and long hours. Work‑life balance challenges appear in accounts of intense pacing and expectations to be “always on” in some groups.
  • High-Pressure & Micromanaging Culture: A demanding atmosphere in certain teams includes pressure to prioritize making managers look good and experiences of micromanagement. A “blaming culture” is referenced where negative input may not be well received.
  • Favoritism & Inequity: Concerns include nepotism and advancement or compensation not consistently aligning with contributions. Understaffing in some areas is said to intensify workloads without commensurate recognition.
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These insights are generated using AI and may not reflect internal data or verified company information. They are intended solely for general informational purposes and should not be considered a definitive assessment of the company’s reputation. If you are a representative of this company, and would like this page to be removed, you may contact us via this form.
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