It’s a carry over from all the bank mergers from the 80s (and probably earlier). You never want to cut someone’s title, so when dinky 10-branch bank gets bought by JP Morgan, the VP just stays a VP even though you can’t possibly make them the second-most-powerful person at JP Morgan. With enough mergers you get a critical mass and you have to create a structure where all the current VPs and everyone around their stature get the title but it officially loses any meaning.
The company I work for has multiplr VPs per division, and about 20-30 divisions. Then there are the group level and corporate level VPs… Functional VPs… And so on and so forth. They last about two years before they go on to be VP of some other bit of the company that makes more money than the last bit.
It’s a carry over from all the bank mergers from the 80s (and probably earlier). You never want to cut someone’s title, so when dinky 10-branch bank gets bought by JP Morgan, the VP just stays a VP even though you can’t possibly make them the second-most-powerful person at JP Morgan. With enough mergers you get a critical mass and you have to create a structure where all the current VPs and everyone around their stature get the title but it officially loses any meaning.
Tldr I blame the Savings and Loan crisis
The company I work for has multiplr VPs per division, and about 20-30 divisions. Then there are the group level and corporate level VPs… Functional VPs… And so on and so forth. They last about two years before they go on to be VP of some other bit of the company that makes more money than the last bit.