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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 41 to 50 below.
Tsedal Neeley
Harvard Business School • Professor of Business Administration, Senior Associate Dean
Neeley, named as one of Thinkers50’s top management thinkers in 2021, has spoken to or worked with some 200 companies since the start of the pandemic.
But the Harvard Business School professor, who formerly worked at Lucent Technologies, has been advising leaders about the future of work for years. The author of books about remote work and having a digital mindset, Neeley points out “the future is here.” As she told Forbes: “The days of linear change that are grounded in time and activities and change efforts–those are gone. We’re in the exponential age.”
Ifeoma Ozoma
Earthseed • Founder & Principal
Two years ago, Ozoma and a colleague publicly accused Pinterest of racism. An act that could have been career suicide instead sparked an apology and a movement to protect tech workers who speak out about harassment and discrimination.
The Yale-educated policy specialist has since championed California’s Silenced No More Act, a 2021 law that bans employers from using NDAs to silence workers, created the Tech Worker Handbook to give people tools to stand against workplace mistreatment and worked on shareholder proposals pushing companies to assess risks of concealmeant clauses. “The future of work to me really is a conversation about the future of workers,” Ozoma told Forbes.
Photo By: BetterUp
Alexi Robichaux
BetterUp • Cofounder & CEO
If you’re looking to become a better leader, getting advice from Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex, or Adam Grant isn’t a bad way to go.
Those are two of the high-wattage names Robichaux has recruited to lend expertise to BetterUp, a platform that aims to bring executive coaching to the masses. “To lead at scale, you have to manage your own psychology,” says Robichaux. “That is a two-person job, in my experience.” Launched in 2013, it now claims to be the world’s largest virtual coaching network, offering support in 64 languages. “Business is one of the only endeavors of elite performance where we feel that we have to go it alone,” says Robichaux.
Kim Scott
Radical Candor • Author & Cofounder
Scott is the workplace guru who keeps cultures from being too nice, preaching a philosophy of “radical candor” that has made her an influential author, advisor, coach and entrepreneur. Her advice on how to be more direct and efficient has resonated with companies like Dropbox and Twitter, where she has consulted as an executive coach.
A former member of the faculty at Apple University and, before that, an executive at AdSense, YouTube and DoubleClick teams at Google, Scott brings a Silicon Valley mindset to her consulting. She also managed a pediatric clinic in Kosovo and started a diamond factory in Moscow.
Matt Sigelman
Burning Glass Institute • President
The former CEO of Emsi Burning Glass, now called Lightcast, earlier this year founded the nonprofit Burning Glass Institute. Sigelman’s data-driven research tracks metrics such as worker mobility, skills and opportunity—working with business school researchers and naming names in his reports.
In February, for instance, the Institute revealed which tech sector companies have the lowest percentage of IT job postings that require college degrees (IBM and Accenture were lowest). And its recent American Opportunity Index, funded by the Schultz Family Foundation, acts as a scorecard of which employers offer the most advancement opportunities for workers (AT&T came out on top).
Photo By: Amazon Labor Union
Chris Smalls
Amazon Labor Union • Founder & President
Dubbed the “tip of the spear” of America’s resurgent labor movement by one H.R. expert, Smalls is the man who took on Amazon—and won.
In early 2020, Smalls was fired after he organized a walkout at an Amazon fulfillment center on Staten Island to protest COVID safety protocols. (The company has said he violated quarantine guidelines.) He launched a push to unionize; that facility became Amazon’s first unionized workplace in the U.S. Workers in Albany recently voted against joining the Amazon Labor Union, where Smalls is president, but his initial win could help shift some power to Amazon’s more than one million workers.
Pete Stavros
KKR • Co-head of the Americas Private Equity
Stavros wrote his Harvard Business School thesis on employee ownership and then put it into practice at an unexpected place: Private equity giant KKR, where he’s championed sharing equity with hourly employees such as assembly line workers and truck drivers to help boost productivity and profitability.
One example: In August, KKR sold Minnesota Rubber and Plastics to Swedish company Trelleborg for $950 million; the firm’s 1,500 employees will receive between three months and two years of pay, depending on tenure. This year, Stavros founded Ownership Works, a nonprofit aimed at broadening equity ownership; already, some 20 private-equity firms have committed to ownership programs in at least three companies by 2024.
Julie Sweet
Accenture • CEO & Chair
With more than 720,000 employees, Sweet leads what’s likely the largest private-sector employer of knowledge workers in the U.S. Even so, only 43% of Accenture’s IT jobs require college degrees, down from 54% in 2017, according to the Burning Glass Institute.
About one-fifth of U.S. entry-level hires come through its paid apprenticeship programs aimed at giving underserved individuals access to digital economy jobs. Sweet has also been a leader on initiatives to get CEOs involved in helping displaced refugees, and Accenture is a metaverse pioneer, with 150,000 workers who went through orientation on its virtual “Nth Floor.”
Hamdi Ulukaya
Chobani • Founder & CEO
As part of a continued push by the Tent Partnership for Refugees, a non-profit Ulukaya founded, nearly four dozen major corporations recently committed to hiring more than 22,000 refugees in the U.S. over the next three years.
The Chobani founder has long hired refugees to work in his factories—even coming under fire amid the 2016 election for it. Though Chobani cited “current market conditions” in September for why it withdrew plans to go public, workers stand to gain when it does: In 2016, Ulukaya said he was granting employee equity, sharing ownership with workers.
Photo By: Zoom
Eric Yuan
Zoom • Founder & CEO
The company he founded in 2011 became synonymous with video conferencing during the pandemic, making Yuan a billionaire and brand ambassador for remote work.
While competition from players like Microsoft, Google and Slack has dampened enthusiasm for his stock, it’s also spurring innovation that could expand Zoom’s reach into the enterprise. Being the go-to for online meetings remains a powerful perch in a world that’s now wedded to hybrid work.
