Heidrick & Struggles buys freelancer marketplace Business Talent Group

Heidrick & Struggles, a Chicago-based govt search and HR consulting agency, has acquired Business Talent Group (BTG), a Los Angeles-based on-line marketplace for impartial consultants.

Founded in 2007, BTG was one of many first firms on the impartial marketing consultant marketplace scene, which now consists of gamers equivalent to Comatch, Catalant, and Talmix. BTG gives on-demand entry to professionals for interim roles and project-based work – serving to firms deal with urgent challenges in technique, ecommerce, and provide chains, amongst different areas. 

BTG’s marketplace has greater than 7,000 professionals who’ve labored at prime consulting firms, and greater than 3,000 skilled challenge and program managers. The firm has matched greater than 50% of the Fortune 100 with curated and vetted specialists.

Heidrick & Struggles’ acquisition of BTG will develop its expertise options providing with an on-demand marketplace for freelance consultants. The core of the agency’s enterprise since its founding in 1953 has been govt seek for interim and everlasting roles. Heidrick & Struggles additionally gives consulting in management improvement and tradition shaping.

“Heidrick & Struggles was a forerunner of the chief search business when the agency was based greater than 65 years in the past,” stated Krishnan Rajagopalan, president and CEO. “The seismic adjustments over the previous yr have accelerated the way forward for work and underscored the significance of agile leaders and workforces. We are excited to be the primary international management advisory agency to enter the on-demand, impartial expertise area and accomplice with BTG, a frontrunner and pioneer of the high-end impartial expertise marketplace.”

The advisory agency beforehand had a two-year unique collaboration with BTG earlier than closing the acquisition this month. BTG will proceed to be led by cofounders Jody Greenstone Miller and Amelia Tyagi, and can function as an entirely owned subsidiary of Heidrick & Struggles.

Pandemic challenges have pushed demand for freelance specialists in provide chain, company technique, digital advertising, information analytics, and program and challenge administration. Rival matchmaker Catalant noticed report returns within the second half of 2020 on the again of robust demand, and likewise attracted another $35 million in funding.

Freelance marketplaces total had a robust second half, with Upwork and Fiverr seeing their earnings beat expectations in late 2020.

“Companies more and more acknowledge that they should faucet on-demand, impartial expertise for important project-based assignments, a pattern which the pandemic has superior,” Miller stated. “Heidrick & Struggles’ govt search capabilities mixed with our on-demand, impartial expertise marketplace brings the way forward for work to firms proper now.”

A latest Harvard Business School report discovered that 90% of company leaders assume tapping on-demand expertise might be key to staying aggressive sooner or later. Leaders are more and more turning to freelance professionals, with 69% of all requests coming from VPs and above (30% from the C-suite), representing a 67% year-over-year improve.

More consultants are additionally selecting the impartial route, because it gives extra flexibility, the power to pick tasks, and infrequently greater take-home pay than at large corporations.

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