Syndicate

This unlocks once you've done everything in Co-Op. Hit level 30, maxed out all researches, completed all challenges and done all the maps on all the difficulties.

Advice is the same as it was in Middle Management.

Leveling: Easy enough: Kill dudes. Headshots/Rampages reward more points, you get points for damage done even if you don't get the kill, Completing challenges gives you points, Completing contracts gives you points. Healing/Rebooting gives you points. Shielding with the Shield App gives you points when the shield breaks. Using Damage Link gives you points. Virtually every good thing you do gives you points.

Research: This is broken into two categories: Weapons and Applications.

For Weapons you get tokens to unlock research options whenever your team kills bosses. Once you get enough you can unlock a research option and then highlight it and press A. A spinning gear should now be present and all the points you get for killing dudes in your subsequent games will count as research for that upgrade.

For Applications the researching process is the same with only a few minor hiccups. The first being that you get tokens only from completing a level once on each difficulty. Complete Western Europe on Normal and you'll get tokens. Complete it again on Normal and you won't get any. Complete it on Hard and you'll get tokens. You also unlock new apps by playing each level at least once and you can only utilize the app upgrades once you've unlocked that tier with a chip upgrade you get from leveling.

Challenges: This are the long road.

-Total Kills (5000) - Doesn't need an explanation

-Spectre Kills (50) - These guys are invisible and you'll only see their shimmer, they carry little armor and are easily dispatched. Highest concentration of them is on Atlantic Accelerator.

-Electron Mace Kills (100) - These are Sergeants carrying Electron Maces. Easily spotted. Avoid them like the plague and shoot them from a distance. You first start seeing them in Colorado. Best to farm on China with Riot Shields at the same time. Refer to Riot Shield Kills.

-Riotlance Kills (100) - Little bit harder to see than the Electron Mace since they don't spew lightning like a thunderhead but look for the whispy blue trails they leave behind as they fire, on higher difficulties these will paralyze you. Commonly used by the Police starting on China.

-Riot Shield Kills (100) - In China and Scandinavia you'll find Police with big impenetrable shields. Credit to notPoison: If you've upgraded your Kusangi assault rifle and/or sniper rifle to penetrate light cover just aim for heads and fire away. Scandinavia has a significant number of them. Scandinavia has lots of Riot Shields but the best place to farm is going to be in China as you're going to need to farm Electron Mace kills as well.

-ECM Kills (50) - These are Sergeants who wear backpacks and block you're ability to Breach or use Apps. You'll know when one is near when you're HUD gets fuzzy and you'll know which one it is by the green aura they give off. Appear infrequently on Normal Argentina and New England and regularly on Hard. Best to farm with Electric Armors on Argentina on Hard. Refer to Electric Armors in this guide.

-Aspari Kills (1000) - Most if not all of the enemies you encounter in Colorado, China and Scandinavia.

-Eurocorp Kills (1000) - Most if not all of the enemies you encounter in Northern Territories, Argentina and New England.

-Cayman Global Kills (1000) - Most if not all of the enemies you encounter in Western Europe, Mozambique and Atlantic Accelerator.

-Police Kills (100) - You'll find them on China and Scandinavia. Easily spottable by their Riot Shields and bug eye helmets. Also easily obtainable.

-Mercenary Kills (20) - You won't see Mercenaries at all until Expert. Even then I only encountered them in the first area of Western Europe after taking too long to progress through the first area. To get them to spawn on a somewhat reliable basis start a private match then progress through the level, they should drop down out of the drop ship to the left of the big door after you kill the last enemy and disable the turret. It'll be eight Sergeants and a Reactive. If they don't spawn nearly right away, then won't at all. Checkpoint and retry.

-Liquid Armor Kills (50) - These gradually get replaced with Reactives as you progress through the maps and increase the difficulty. Colorado, China and Scandinavia seem to have the most.

-Electric Armor Kills (50) - Only appear starting at Northern Territories onward. They appear infrequently on Normal and regularly on Hard. Best bet is to play Argentina you can solo the level on Hard if you play conservatively and with the CQC Pulse and Reboot. There will be two Electrics on the level before the boss fight and plenty of chances for ECMs which you most likely will need to farm as well. Two birds with one stone.

-Reactive Armor Kills (50) - Easily spottable and killable since they are fat and slow moving. More frequent on Expert and Colorado and Argentina has the most.

-Agent Kills (20) - You'll first find Agents as a group at the end of Atlantic Accelerator, you'll see them again as a group in Scandinavia. You'll fight two in Argentina and another group of four in New England. There is one Agent in the sewers of China. Unlike with the Armors only the player that Chiprips or Detonates them will get credit.

-Kills by Fire (100) - The Thermite Gun, Laser and secondary fire on the Shotgun all count towards this.

Gibbed Enemies (500) - You can gib enemies by headshotting them with the Shotgun, Sniper, six round revolver, hand grenade, Minigun (headshot or saw them in half), Rocket launcher, Swarm launcher, heavy Shotgun or with a headshot with the Gauss.

-Executions (500) - You get an execution by running up to an enemy and pressing RStick. You'll perform a first person take down. The chip upgrade so that each one heals you makes this much easier. Seemingly Chiprips also count since I earned progress for Make It Snappy mostly through chiprips.

-Heals (500) - Heal your teamates. It doesn't need to be a direct breach heal as using Squad Heal or C2C Pulse will work too. Any amount of health healed counts as one.

-Reboots (200) - Reboot your downed teamate. You have to be within the orange circle to start. Too boost it's a simple matter of standing out in the open, going down and being nearby in cover to Reboot them.

-Savior (50) - This is awarded when you save a teamate from an Electron Mace or heal them when their health bar is flashing red.

-Team Savior (50) - This is awarded when you are the last man standing and reboot a fellow teamate.

-Syndicate Heals (500) - Same as heals only with a fellow Syndicate member.

-Syndicate Saviors (50) - Same as Saviors only with a fellow Syndicate member.

-Syndicate Reboots (200) - Same as Reboots only with a fellow Syndicate member.

Levels: You get stars for completing each level on each difficulty. One star for each level on each difficulty. Before trying Hard or Expert make sure you are upgraded enough. You'll know when you're current difficulty becomes too easy.

Credit to Sourman145 on xbox360achievements for numbers and locations on the Challenges.

CEO // Level 5 Mercenary Challenge
The most frustrating part of this achievement was getting the mercenaries to spawn. I spent a good three hours trying with no luck. Finally, found a quick way to do it. Below are two videos I recorded, so you could get a better grasp of the method I used.

Summary
Each run will net 7 or 8 mercenary kills. The level 5 challenge requires 20, so three runs at this should do it. If you breach the booth and the dropship doesn't show up, it isn't going to, so don't even bother wasting your time. Just restart.

It's a bit of a pain in the ass, but you'll get it.

Here is my solution. I did it this way and it didn't take too long.

So I recommend that you get rank 30 before you start grinding these challenges because it's a lot easier when you have all the chips and researches. I used mainly kusanagi assault rifle and bullhammer. What apllications you use, well its about you but I used c2c pulse and reboot so I didn't have start again if I die.

There is also very easy way to hit rank 30 if you have a friend. Just choose Mosambique and make your way through to the first machine gun. Don't breach it because now you or your friend goes to top of the stairs so that machine gun shoots you. Then you just wait that you die and then your friend reboots you and he gains 1800 points if I remember right. At this way you can get points and hit rank 30 very fast.

Okay, I started to grind these challenges after we had done all levels on expert so I already had some challenges done.

First I played multiple times China on normal because this is the best map to get mace kills ( about 6 to 8 for round), riotlance kills and riot shield kills. You may have better success with harder difficulty but this level sucks so I that's why I did it on normal. You also get liquid armor kills 2 for round but don't concentrate to this too much yet. When you finish all these it's time to move to next part.

Now choose New england on hard and keep playing first two checkpoints. You will get 3 electro armor kills, at least 3 ecm kills and many penetration kills if you don't have that achievements yet. I recommend that when the level starts climb ladders on your right and at the top turn right. From there you can see all enemies because they run from tiny hole directly front of you. I hope this helps because this is only hard part in the level.

Next you should go towards that mercenary kills challenge. Choose expert and Western Europe. Main thing you have to do is to kill EVERYONE before you move on to the next area. If the mercs do not appear when there is anymore enemies at the first area they don't at all. I did this all by myself and get them 3 for 4 times. Use sniper when doing this it helps a lot and snipe every enemy from the stand at the start of the level.

If you still need some challenges like liquid armor kills like I did there is very easy way to obtain them. Choose Skandinavia on hard and just run to first checpoint. You get 1 kill for every run and it takes about 1 or 2 minutes. You may also need some spectre kills but they are really easy, just take Atlantic accelerator.

All other challenges are relatively easy and you shouldn't have any problems with them. Sorry for grammar error I am not native english speaker.

This solution is detailed for Mercenary Kills challenge that is part of the CEO achievement.

The overall solution that Sourman145 originally provided is pretty spot on. There is a little vagueness with Mercenary Kills that I would like to elaborate on that I believe will give you a 90-95% Mercenary appearance rate.

The Mercenary Kills were farmed by xMANNY FRE5Hx, joethepot, BiiioHazarD, and me. My thanks go to them for their help.

Setup:
~ # of players - 4 (don't all need to be in same syndicate)
~ map - Western Europe
~ difficulty - Expert

You may have had success with fewer players on a different map. We had a drop ship appear 9 out of 10 times.

The following steps are what we did every time and I believe is conclusive...

Once the match starts, 3 people are to go to the right up the steps onto the mezzanine and stay there sniping the entire level. Kill the 2 enemies coming up the other side of the steps and then immediately kill the rocket launcher on the wall on the right near the gate. Eliminate enemies the moment they are visible. Use Dart Overlay to snipe them if they go into cover.

You can breach the controls in the 1st guard shack to raise the barricades. DO NOT BREACH THE CONTROLS IN THE 2nd GUARD POST TO OPEN THE GATE TO THE NEXT AREA!!

As the level plays out, enemies will come out of the large gate on the right to the next area. KILL THEM IMMEDIATELY as they appear. 1 enemy comes out at a time. That enemy needs to be killed for the next enemy to quickly come out.

Okay, now the 4th player comes into play. At the start of the match, the 4th player on the team can wait a few seconds to allow the path around the corner to clear. Once the enemies around the 1st guard post are eliminated, that player is to proceed around the guard post, turn left down the 1st alley and breach the gate in front of them. Then player 4 is to turn right around the corner and proceed past the fuel tanks while killing a rocket launcher enemy on the roof. Once the rocket launcher enemy is eliminated, player 4 goes to the next corner and STOPs. Player 4 is NOT to proceed down the next segment of alley that will take them to the guard post near the APC. They are to stay there and shoot anyone that they can see.

The elapsed time to this point should be about 1 minute. The main objective, besides killing the enemies, is to kill ALL the spawning enemies that come out from the large gate. You will know when you have killed them all because the female communication voice will tell you to proceed to the next area. The large gate will remain open until one of your squad mates gets within proximity of the gate, then it will close. Within a matter of seconds (if it hasn't appeared already), the drop ship should appear at the rear of this section deploying 6 named Lieutenants and 1 Reactive Lieutenant with a minigun. The person killing the named Lieutenants will get credit for those kills. The person that initiates the final shield breach on the Reactive will get the credit for that kill, not the person that ChipRips him. Once all the mercs are killed, breach the controls for the main gate. Once the gate is opened get all 4 players into the next section, breach the next set of controls which saves your progress, rinse and repeat.

The drop ship should appear within 2 minutes of the level starting if the above steps are followed. If the drop ship doesn't appear within 2.5 minutes, it won't appear at all. Quit out and start over.

We all farmed our mercenary kills on 20 May. When we followed these steps exactly, the drop ship appeared 9 out of 10 times. When we got too close to the gate before all the enemies were killed, the drop ship didn't appear. You will know if you did not kill all the spawning enemies because there will be 4 enemies behind the gate once the main gate is breached.

Eliminate all the enemies as quickly as possible while not getting too close to the main gate and you should have great success.