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Since the beginning of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in 2015, there has been a significant focus on the future of work and what this will look like in five or even 10 years’ time.
Forbes recently published an article which focuses on the Top 50 businesses and business leaders that are shaping this future. Find out more about 21 to 30 below.
Ashutosh Garg
Eightfold.ai • Cofounder & CEO
Garg and his cofounder, chief technology officer Varun Kacholia, have a slew of patents, research citations and machine learning experience to their name (Kacholia formerly led the news feed team at Facebook and YouTube’s search and recommendations team).
They’re now putting that to work on recruiting, retention and skills mapping, using artificial intelligence and deep learning to discover the innate and adjacent skills people have—even those not listed on a resume or known to the company—and match them to available jobs. Eightfold recently partnered with New York state’s Department of Labor to expand its Virtual Career Center to use artificial intelligence to match job seekers’ skills with opportunities.
Katy George
McKinsey & Co • Chief People Officer
George, a longtime partner in the firm’s operations practice who worked on supply chain issues and manufacturing performance, is now trying to optimize McKinsey’s own people operations.
At a time when the elite consulting firm has faced external scrutiny and increasing competition for young talent, George, together with global managing partner Bob Sternfels, is making substantial changes, replacing the firm’s famous case-style interviews with game-based assessments for many candidates, doubling the number of places from which it recruits from 700 in 2020 to 1400 (its 2026 goal is 5,000) and scaling support for apprenticeships and bootcamps at a place long known for its Ivy League degrees.
Photo By: Google
Lisa Gevelber
Google • Chief Marketing Officer, Americas region & Founder, Grow with Google
In 2017, Gevelber founded Grow with Google, the company’s unit that oversees its Career Certificates program, to help people without college degrees build tech skills. The courses, in subjects like data analytics or IT support, cost $39 a month via Coursera.
In 2021, Google made the certificates free for all community colleges to add at no cost, and in May, said it would cover costs for up to 500 workers at any U.S. business. More recently, Google added “industry specialization” courses from schools like Columbia University and University of Michigan. “What we’re trying to do is make great jobs accessible to more people,” Gevelber told Forbes this summer.
Adam Grant
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania • Professor of Management & Psychology; Bestselling author
In every generation, there is an academic who captures the zeitgeist in a way that resonates with a wide audience and drives change. Grant is such a figure, a bestselling author and organizational psychologist who has studied the science behind generosity, motivation, purpose and grief.
Perhaps driven by his research on giving, Grant can seem ubiquitous—advising the latest work-related startup, partnering with former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg or writing articles about topics like languishing. Do we need Grant to tell us people work harder when they feel valued? No. But by backing it up with data, he drives home the power of connecting as human beings.
Sarah Guo
Conviction • Founder
For nine years, Guo made the future of work a key investment focus at venture capital firm Greylock Partners. In September, she doubled down on that bet when launching her own firm, Conviction Partners, where she plans to focus on early stage artificial intelligence startups.
Among her initial investments: Cleo, a company providing caregiver support for working families; CoRise, a professional growth training platform; Mystery, a work event organizer; and Remotion, a lightweight virtual office for remote teams. Utmost, a gig economy app she championed at Greylock, was recently acquired by extended workforce manager Beeline.
Photo By: Kleiner Perkins
Mamoon Hamid
Kleiner Perkins • Partner
As a leader of VC firm Kleiner Perkins, Hamid has prioritized investing in software that changes how workers collaborate. Along with being an early investor in Box and Slack before joining his current firm, his design software bet, Figma, recently entered into an agreement to be acquired by Adobe for $20 billion.
Other investments include online document maker Coda and Glean, a tool that can search across knowledge bases to surface relevant information. For Hamid, who grew up in Germany, part of the motivation is finding tools that help people “work to live, not live to work:” “How do you meet and work more efficiently, so you can spend your time with your family and friends?”
Vinay Hiremath & Joe Thomas
Loom • Cofounder & Chief Technology Officer; Cofounder & CEO
After nearly three years of too many meetings-that-could-have-been-an-email, “asynchronous” has become a major buzzword in the world of work. In 2015, Loom cofounders—and Forbes 30 Under 30 alums—Thomas and Hiremath were early players in letting people capture and send short video messages without having to be in a video call simultaneously. (A third cofounder, Shahed Khan, remains an adviser.)
While Slack and Microsoft have incorporated short video clip messages in their products, and Loom has other competitors, it’s also built a big base: The brand says it has more than 200,000 enterprise clients. One CHRO says it has “fundamentally changed how I communicate with my team.”
Kathleen Hogan
Microsoft • EVP, Chief Human Resources Officer
As Nadella’s partner in reshaping Microsoft’s culture, Hogan leads human resources for the tech giant and has helped transform it into a talent bellwether.
In June, for example, Microsoft was seen as being at the vanguard when it promised to put pay ranges in all job postings, even in places where it’s not yet mandated by law. The company also said it was removing noncompete clauses from U.S. employee agreements. A former software developer and McKinsey consultant, Hogan took an untraditional path to the H.R. role. She has also been a convener of her peers, initiating Microsoft’s CHRO Summit in 2019.
Photo By: Dropbox
Drew Houston
Dropbox • Cofounder & CEO
Houston and his team were early adopters of a “Virtual First” approach that made clear employees should work virtually most of the time and only gather if events meet certain criteria, like socializing for happy hours or collaborating to brainstorm.
To emphasize the point, Dropbox redesigned and renamed its offices “studios” to encourage in-person gatherings that have a purpose. Virtual meetings and desk work is required during “core collaboration hours” (typically 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Pacific), freeing up time for heads-down work and personal needs—giving employees more power over when they work, not just where. Annual $7,000 work from home stipends can be spent on things like childcare or ergonomic chairs.
Bjarke Ingels
Bjarke Ingels Group • Founding Partner
From Google’s “dragonscale” eco-friendly headquarters to a Copenhagen clean energy plant with a roof-top ski slope and climbing-wall facade, Ingels brings a playful sense of purpose to urban design.
The Danish architect’s philosophy of “pragmatic utopian architecture” and “hedonistic sustainability” has made BIG a leader with clients seeking to delight and do good. That includes creating the pleasures of home in office space through “a string of pearls of outdoor terraces,” a neuroscience center that “unzips the typical hospital corridor” with design inspired by brain morphology and a UN-backed floating city in South Korea. Ingel’s goal? Collaborate in creating not just cool creations but a plan for the planet.
