It used to be that if you wanted to build a career working for a platform company you had to move to San Francisco, Seattle, or Beijing. This is where the action and opportunities were. In 2015, I led a project that produced the first global survey of platform companies. Through this analysis, we found that 78 of the top platform companies were concentrated in those three cities. Here’s a chart from one of the reports, The Rise of the Platform Enterprise, produced by this project.
Since then, the platform economy has grown over 3X in market capitalization. The market cap of the top 100 platform companies is now over $13 trillion compared to $4.3 trillion in 2015. The scope and geography have also broadened. Platform business models are being embraced by a much wider array of companies than was true just 5 years ago. This means that, among other things, there are greater career opportunities for platform professionals.
This week I pulled together a list of 15 active platform professional talent searches. Not surprisingly, there are great platform professional jobs available in San Francisco, Seattle, and Beijing. However, now there are also great opportunities in Melbourne, Toronto, Ningbo, Helsinki, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Singapore, Johannesburg, Barcelona, Taipei, Istanbul, London, and New York.
These roles are not only diverse in terms of geography but also in terms of business focus. The roles seek talent to lead platform strategy, growth, and operations for:
music
marketplaces
micro-mobility
connected cars
platform consulting
broadcasting
creator marketplaces
gaming
foodtech
cosmetics
travel
logistics
banking
retail
sports
Here’s a full list of these 15 positions with links to the full job descriptions:
Head of Regional Marketplace Performance - Free Now
Head of Strategy & Planning - Uber Eats
Director of Product - Partnerships - Booking.com
Platform Product Manager - ESA Esports
Platform Director - Joyson Group
Chief Technology Officer - Twitch
Platform Strategy & Partnerships Director - Activision Blizzard
B2B E-Commerce Platform Manager - L'Oréal
Director of Business Development, Mobility & Delivery - Uber
Senior Product Manager- Connected Retail - Zalando
The growing number and diversity of positions are creating terrific career opportunities for platform professionals. If you have the requisite skills and experience, there is an increasing demand for your services across multiple roles across the world.
The growing global demand for platform professionals also raises questions. One concerns the current state of education and training. Why aren’t there more business schools focused on this area? When you look across the thousands of business schools around the world, you find surprisingly little offered for aspiring platform professionals. There are a few universities that offer excellent courses in platform strategy and management. However, these courses are only offered as electives. No MBA program currently offers a degree in platform management or even a minor.
Another concerns enterprise talent strategy. Given the limited business school pipeline and the limited number of professionals with platform experience in the market today, companies on the hunt for talent are likely to come up short. They are not going to be able to find the expertise and experience they need. One option is to poach talent from others. Another option is to invest in in-house training. At the very least, companies are going to need to develop both near term and long term strategies if they hope to have the talent bench and leadership teams they need to compete.
For a deeper dive on platform talent trends and recommendations for aspiring platform professionals and company talent strategies see: