It is so customers can feel good about working with a VP for their personalized service.
Hierarchy theater.
Very very much a thing in Finance, with tiers of VP too (Assistant VP, VP, Senior VP). Even for people doing internal support, it makes the internal “customer” feel good.
It was a learning experience when I was told not to prioritize anyone below SVP.
It’s often also used as a compensation aid when someone has maxed out their pay band or title but there isn’t a management slot open or they don’t want to do management. My team doesn’t have titles for team leads, but all our “unofficial” ones have at least an “Assistant” VP title.
“Assistant VP” or “Assistant to the VP”? lol
I will just leave this little nugget of applicable wisdom from Napoleon Bonaparte:
A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.
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
