INDUSTRY UPDATE: Construction & Real Estate

In the context of this Industry Update, we recognize a continuous interaction between the real estate and construction markets. We will report on important aspects of each, as well as regional distinctions across our target geography. But overall we regard the construction and real estate executive market as one. They are an intertwined pool of opportunity.

Long-Term Gain, Short Term Pain

Beginning with the US housing market, the volume of sales clearly moves inversely to the price of a home and the cost of a mortgage: “The total value of the U.S. housing market has doubled in the last decade and is now worth $43.4 trillion, according to a Zillow analysis.” (See source.) In the short term, “The median [US] existing-home sales price was down 0.2% to $363,000 in February compared to a year ago, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). This ends a record streak of 131 consecutive months of year-over-year increases. Total existing-home sales jumped 14.5% from January to February—ending a run of 12 consecutive months of declining sales—but were still down 22.6% from a year ago, per NAR.” (See source.)

Homes for sale inventory in the US is still very low, though, and likely to remain so despite a short-term uptick. “Housing starts also rose 9.8% in February, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), helping to provide much-needed inventory.” (See source.)

On commercial real estate, “CBRE forecasts a 15% year-over-year drop in U.S. commercial real estate investment volume in 2023 [to $609.65 billion], although it will exceed the pre-pandemic record annual total in 2019. Investment activity likely will bottom out in the first quarter and then gradually improve.” (See source.) One of several reasons is the hybrid in-office/remote work model: “As companies find an optimal balance over the next few years, office utilization and the space needed per worker will reach a new equilibrium that could ultimately reduce demand for office space per employee by up to 15% from the pre-pandemic norm.” (See source.)

“Demand [will likely be] stronger in Sun Belt markets, life sciences clusters, and best-in-class assets.” “Fast-growing and popular Sun Belt markets, including Austin, Dallas, Miami, and Nashville, will remain in favor. Growing demand among life science tenants, who generally don’t allow remote work, will buoy hubs like Boston, Denver, and Salt Lake City. Best-in-class properties in otherwise hard-hit primary markets, including Manhattan and Los Angeles, will also garner more interest.” (See source.)

In Europe, the “European Central Bank earlier this month [April] warned of “clear signs of vulnerability” in the property sector, citing “declining market liquidity and price corrections” as reasons for the uncertainty, and calling for new curbs on commercial property funds to reduce the risks of an illiquidity crisis. Already in February, European funds invested directly in real estate recorded outflows of £172 million ($215.4 million), according to Morningstar Direct data — a sharp contrast from the inflows of almost £300 million seen in January.” (See source.) A contributing factor here too is the question of where people will actually work.

However, office space occupancy rates are generally much higher in Europe than in the US, so the former market has much less slack. In Europe, a “total of 12.6 million sq m of office space was leased in 2022, a 15% jump on the 10.9 million sq m leased in 2021, and sits well above the fifteen-year average of 10.3 million sq m. The growth in activity was evident across the majority of markets with 23 out of 30 markets tracked reporting year-on-year growth in leasing activity. Major markets including Milan (+37%), Warsaw (+34%), Madrid (+32%), Paris (+26%), and London (+22%) all showed robust levels of activity.” (See source.)

As far as office space in the UK is concerned, “Take-up in the Big Six regions and Central London totaled 3.88 million sq ft in the final quarter of 2022, an increase of 5% on the previous quarter and 4% above the 10-year quarterly average.” “Despite the strong finish to the year, the Big Six markets were 8% below their average take-up with Central London also 1% down in 2022.” (See source.) 

In the Middle East, real estate investment in the GCC countries grew at more than twice GDP growth in 2022. “The total value of real estate projects currently planned or under construction currently stands at an estimated $1.36 trillion. Saudi Arabia accounts for 64.5 percent of this total or some $877 billion, followed by the UAE, which at $293 billion, accounts for 21.6 percent of the total.” (See source.) 

Shifting our focus to the construction segment, let’s start with Canada. The “Construction industry in Canada is expected to grow by 4.2% to reach CAD 192,205 million in 2023. […] The growth momentum is expected to continue over the forecast period, recording a CAGR of 3.8% during 2023-2027. The construction output in the country is expected to reach CAD 222,882.9 million by 2027.” (See source.) 

We already noted the generally rapid growth in the Middle East above. There is one segment that is literally and figuratively “hot.” That segment is data centers. “The Middle East data center construction market size was valued at USD 1.84 Billion in 2022 and is expected to reach USD 2.86 Billion by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 7.59%.” (See source.) 

In the UK, the construction market value is expected to grow from £326.94 to £476.6 Billion between 2022 and 2027. (See source.) While office space may take a breather, “infrastructure and energy and utilities investment will be a key area of construction spending in the coming years, offsetting weakness in the buildings sectors.” (See source.)

The “construction industry in Europe is expected to record a CAGR of 3.7% to reach USD 2,839.7 billion by 2024. The residential construction industry in value terms increased at a CAGR of 4.2% during 2015-2019. The commercial building construction market in value terms is expected to record a CAGR of 3.0% over the forecast period.” (See source.)

For the US, the “market size, measured by revenue, of the Construction industry is $2.6tr in 2023.” This means a 4.2% decline versus prior year and an average shrinkage of 1.3% per annum between 2018 and 2023. (See source.) Government spending from programs such as the Inflation Reduction Act and others may well affect the direction of this trend going forward.

However, one important barrier is unlikely to evaporate any time soon: “The US currently lacks around 430,000 construction workers and the industry has only recovered 67% of the jobs lost in March and April 2020.” (See source.) “The biggest concern in the construction sector of the European Union (EU-27) was the shortage of labor. Approximately 30 percent of respondents as of March 2023 mentioning that it was limiting their activities.” (See source.)Numerous apparently intractable factors contribute to this phenomenon including an aging workforce, better pay in other sectors, a lack of immigrants, etc.

Innovations Transforming the Industry

So far we have presented a mixed picture between real estate and construction. Both industries are certainly impacted by the rising cost of capital and an acute labor shortage, particularly in the US and Europe. However, there are also numerous interesting trends seething under the surface, trends that can bring major benefits—especially to executives who have the right skill set. Here are a few of the most intriguing developments.

• Prefab and modular construction reduces the effect of construction labor shortages.
• Virtual design is accelerating and streamlining previously manual and highly specialized pre-construction processes, also perhaps reducing the preeminent role of architects.
• Living or otherwise advanced materials such as biocement, “aerogel, graphene, spider silk, carbon composites, hydroceramics, and nanomaterials” offer intriguing benefits, including enhancing sustainability, the ability to hold more water, higher strength with lower weight, etc.
• Drones also simplify both pre-construction processes as well as project monitoring during the actual build.
• Construction robots can contribute by autonomously digging foundations, moving materials, tying rebar, inspecting, and otherwise supplementing human crews.
• (See source 1. See source 2. See source 3.)

The Market for Executives

Although we serve clients worldwide, we focus on the US, Canada, the EU, the UK, and the Middle East. In these markets, more than 1 million executives work in this segment. This is a group that has grown just 0.5% in the past year although almost 23,000 executives have also changed jobs. This means that there were some 28,000 new or re-filled executive opportunities in this industry over the last 12 months. The US & Canada employed 667,000 (+0.03%) and the EU, UK, and the Middle East employed 336,000 (+0.8%). In other words, even in a slow-growing market, there can be plenty of opportunity if you know where to look. Based on their LinkedIn declarations, some 614,000 of these execs worked mainly in Construction while 430,000 (+0.4%) hailed mainly from Real Estate (+0.7%).

In both cases, the female share of executives is relatively low at 12% and 24% respectively. LinkedIn further typifies the overall demand as rather low for these profiles.

There are numerous pockets of higher growth, too. Chart 1 examines the specific industrial focus declared by executives in this overall segment whereby Venture Capital & Private Equity (+4.8%), Non-profit Management (+2.8%), Staffing & Recruiting (+2.4%), Financial Services (+1.9%), Investment Management (+1.4%), and Food & Beverage (+1.3%) all stand out as exhibiting both higher growth and a continuing “very high” hiring demand according to LinkedIn.

Clients of the Barrett Group, of course, have access to much more detailed information first at the industry level, then at the target company level, and lastly often at the hiring manager level.

Note, too, that some segments with low growth still have a high hiring demand, presumably due to the difficulty of sourcing and retaining appropriate candidates. Utilities, Telecommunications, Renewables & Environment, Hospital & Health Care, Computer Software, and Information Technology & Services all fit this pattern per Chart 1.

Chart 2 opens the aperture on specializations in this industrial segment, and their relative frequency. This chart also provides a perspective on the relative demand for one skill set versus another.

Bear in mind that the cohort we are examining has declared an overall principal participation in the Construction and Real Estate industry. Within that context, most have also highlighted multiple specializations. These are addressed in Chart 2 which allows us to distinguish Construction Management from Construction, for example, or Residential Real Estate from Commercial Real Estate.

As we often point out in these Updates, some of these specializations are quite unique to the segment. Those specialties such as Property Management, Renovation, Project Estimation, etc. These are perhaps less transferrable specialties. If candidates want to move into or out of this field, many other specialties are highly transferable.

Budgeting, New Business Development, Sales Management, Finance, Business Planning, etc. are all examples of skills that can be repositioned to or from other industries—something the Barrett Group helps clients with regularly as they decide to change their professional trajectories and we help them chart their new course.

On the demand side of the equation, LinkedIn also provides some transparency on the number of want ads published seeking various specializations. Those with the highest frequency stand out in the right half of Chart 2, particularly Construction, Budgeting, Finance, and Analytical Skills. Where there is no apparent data, this simply means that the number of want ads was quite low, though not necessarily zero.

Chart 3 delves into the actual employers of executives in this industry. CRBE tops the chart as far as the number of executives goes, but the company is also showing impressive growth for its size and industry (+7% total staff, 11,120 hires in the last 12 months). Speaking about total staff, CRBE has hired extensively from JLL, Cushman & Wakefield, Colliers, and Amazon over the past year. Their teams are distributed widely in New York, London, Dallas (their headquarters), Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Delhi, Singapore, and Sydney to name a selection of locations.

Farther down the ranking but showing very high growth are Northmarq (+16.7%) and Stream Realty Partners (+18%). Northmarq hails from Minneapolis and has completed the acquisition of the Stan Johnson company within the past year which accounts for much of their recent growth. Here’s what the industry press had to say about the deal:

“Commercial real estate capital markets platform Northmarq has agreed to acquire Stan Johnson Co., a Tulsa-based real estate brokerage and advisory firm, for an undisclosed price. The acquisition will include Stan Johnson’s affiliated debt services company, Four Pillars Capital Markets.” (See source.)

Stream Realty Partners bills itself as one of the fastest-growing full-service commercial realtors in the US. Stream Realty Partners has grown organically, hiring mainly from CBRE, Cushman & Wakefield, JLL, and Transwestern. Most of their staff is based in Texas.

Another fast grower is Turner Construction (+11.6%), based in New York: “Turner is a North America-based, international construction services company and is a leading builder in diverse and numerous market segments.” The company’s talent acquisition appears to be broad-based with significant hiring from Kiewit and Clark Construction in the past 12 months, however, the firm is also expanding to new markets including the UAE, Nigeria, and India among others.

Based in Missouri, US, JE Dunn (+9.6%) is also expanding rapidly though only on a US basis so far, acquiring talent organically and mainly from DPR Construction, Turner Construction, and Kiewit. 

Prologis (+7.9%) focuses on logistics real estate saying, “Prologis, Inc. is the global leader in logistics real estate. In partnership with our customers and our communities, we develop modern, high-quality properties that set the standard for innovative building design and sustainability. Prologis owns or has investments in properties and development projects of ~1.2 billion square feet in 19 countries and enables 2.8% of the world’s GDP.”

Clearly, there are different strategies in play for the fastest-growing companies we have just reviewed. Location remains an important component.

Chart 4 explores the employment locations for executives in this industry. We encourage readers to bear in mind the high opportunity to work remotely these days. It is important to remember that where you are employed may not influence where you actually work.

The major locations in the US all show growth levels representative of the industry as a whole. The only real exceptions are perhaps Columbus (+0.9%) and Nashville (+1.7%). Hiring demand appears to be high or very high in numerous locations such as Dallas, Atlanta, San Francisco, Houston, etc.

Paris tops London in terms of growth. Hiring demand seems to be higher in London. Other international locations worth mentioning follow.

In the UAE, three employers appear prominently in Dubai. These are namely, ALDAR, Emaar, and DAMAC Properties.

Munich shows significant growth. Linder, Colliers, and Künzel Group employ the largest numbers of industry execs there.

Lyon shows some life. LinkedIn cites Orpi, Gerant, and Guy Hoquet L’Immobilier as the largest employers in this sector in Lyon. 

Peter Irish, CEO
The Barrett Group

Click here for a printable version of Industry Update – Construction & Real Estate 2023

Editor’s Note:

In this particular Update, “executives” generally refers to the Vice President, Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Managing Director, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Human Resources Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Information Officer, Managing Partner, General Counsel, Head, and President titles. Unless otherwise noted, the data in this Update largely came from LinkedIn and represents a snapshot of the market as it was at the time of the research.

Is LinkedIn truly representative? Here’s a little data: LinkedIn has more than 900 million users. (See source.) It is by far the largest and most robust business database in the world, now in its 20th year. LinkedIn defines the year-over-year change (YOY Change) as the change in the number of professionals divided by the count as of last year. “Attrition” is defined as the departures in the last 12 months divided by the average headcount over the last year.

Is Fear Freezing Your Resolve?

We all know the feeling… Hair prickling. Hands and teeth clenched. Clammy palms. Frozen limbs. Staring eyes. Rapid pulse. Helplessness… Yes, it’s our age-old friend FEAR come to visit.

The question is, why?

Fear is a normal, even helpful reaction we are told, one programmed in by evolution. Blood flows to the limbs, for example, to help prepare us for the fight or flight response. In the face of imminent, physical danger, these responses remain crucial, however, facing chronic, lingering fear of being made redundant or being passed over for a promotion again, for example, these reactions may yield a harvest of unwelcome consequences, increasing stress, impairing brain function, encouraging procrastination, and trapping us in unhelpful behaviors. [Read more.]

One source cites seven distinct work-related fears including “This is as good as it will get,” “I’m settling,” “I’m never getting promoted,” etc. [See Source]. Because we speak with hundreds of executives every month, the Barrett Group sees a good cross-section of motivations in would-be career changers, some clearly related to fear.

The chart shows an overview of the motivations executives earning $100,000 or more shared as their reasons for seeking a career change, comparing also how these have changed from 2022 to 2023.

Ranked at #7 and #13, “Lack of Job Security” and “Possible Unemployment” seem most closely allied to employment fears.

Most of the other inputs though reflect an ambitious, self-confident attitude such as prioritizing “Personal needs in relation to employer,” “Decreasing likelihood of promotions,” or “No growth potential.”

On the other hand, what people SAY versus what they actually DO can be surprisingly different. For example, we asked the same population “How long have you been contemplating a change of career?” They responded with multiple “months” (50%) or “years” (50%).

Why would anyone wait YEARS to change jobs?

Perhaps these executives view their situations as fixed, immutable, set in stone… They might like to change but they settle instead for a suboptimal situation or, worse case, a dead-end job. “What to do if you’re stuck in a dead end job” may be helpful to those executives, but the main lesson is to stop procrastinating and take intelligent countermeasures. The first step must be to change your mindset from “living a life of quiet desperation” to one where you feel free to seek joy, excitement, reward… because you know there are other opportunities for you out there. This is surely ground zero in overcoming your professional fears.

Fear of failing holds many people back, too, of course. Congratulations! You Failed! explores the fact that failure is overrated as a career path and, besides, it’s avoidable.

Then there is the macroeconomic excuse. “Right now is not the best time to change jobs…” the argument goes. Well, guess what? That’s just another nudge from our old friend FEAR. There is always movement in the executive market and the secret is to manage your career like the asset it is. Yes, you may need to make changes. That’s life. We help clients do this every day. For a different perspective, try Upsidedownsizing (Part Three): Winners and Losers.

What you may not realize is that the executive market is much bigger and more active than most people can imagine.

We regularly report on a cohort of executives (VPs and C-level) numbering more than 400,000 who have either acquired newly minted positions or changed jobs in the past year. Most of these opportunities were never advertised. That’s why fully 75% of our clients land through what we call the unpublished market.

Naturally, many of our clients also felt fears and frustrations about their prospects.

Here is one example, excerpted from one of our Success Studies:

“This is the third time in a row for me to get laid off,” said Kia. “I decided then that I needed to have more control over my career.”

For Kia, there was a silver lining to getting laid off. He’d come to realize that many of the responsibilities he had been tasked to do didn’t play to his strengths. He’d spent most of his career doing sales and business development or running entire sales divisions, and he resolved to get back to his roots. 

To Kia’s surprise, it didn’t go well.

“It was interesting. I couldn’t land a sales job in pharma. All the hiring managers told me that I was up against people with 10-15 years of experience. By comparison, I had four years running entire sales divisions and a decade of selling deals worth millions of dollars in the healthcare field. […] Yet, despite my success in far more challenging sales environments with the same customer base, the hiring managers couldn’t seem to appreciate that and never considered me a serious candidate for pharma sales. It was really frustrating to be considered under-qualified for jobs that I was more than qualified to do.” [Kia Bandisadre, 2023, Read more]

Kia went on to have his eyes opened during the first part of his Barrett Group career change journey (the Clarity Program©) and landed as a VP of Sales—in a completely different industry.

That is another way of shedding your professional fears. If you think your future is confined to one industry or one company, think again. We help clients clarify their own career targets (often improving their quality of life and virtually always their compensation) and then guide them through the tried and true process that has helped literally thousands of executives land their targeted roles over the last three decades.

Want more evidence?

Read Where the Executive Jobs Are to discover how our clients are landing every week.

Want to hear it from an authoritative source?

How about Forbes who has repeatedly cited the Barrett Group as one of the best in the business? [Read more.]

When he said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself…” he was not speaking of your career, though the advice seems perfectly apt even now, but Franklin D. Roosevelt was facing even bigger odds with the gaping Great Depression staring him in the face in 1933. This courageous perspective applies to all those executives sitting on their hands and missing opportunity due to their fears. Perhaps to you.

So shake off fear’s icy grip. Take the first step. Accept a new, fresh mindset—you CAN elevate your career. And by all means, hire some competent help to bolster your campaign. Engage the Barrett Group. We make it our job to help you find yours.

Peter Irish, CEO
The Barrett Group

Enduring Opportunity in Private Equity

In the long run, private equity is inexorably gaining market share:

“The number of US public companies has declined by about a third over the last 25 years […] Private market returns, meanwhile, are outpacing public returns over every time horizon […] These advantages explain why private markets continue to grow relative to the public markets.” [See source.]

In fact, 85% of employment in the US is in the private sector according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics—more than 118 million employees. Specifically, the “private equity industry and private equity-backed companies directly employed more than 11.7 million workers in the United States in 2020 and generated $1.4 trillion of gross domestic product (GDP), or approximately 6.5% of total GDP” [See source].

However, the second half of 2022 and now the outlook for 2023 reveal a stormier period in private equity’s (PE’s) smooth sailing. McKinsey quips: “The music didn’t stop, but someone turned it way down […] Banks began to pull back, unwilling or unable to lend. Private markets deal volume plummeted, performance declined, and valuations fell—dramatically in certain sectors. Still, private markets outperformed public markets on the way down, whether due to truly more resilient portfolios, a lag in timing, or manager discretion […]” [See source].

In a nutshell, PE fundraising has slowed dramatically: “Global private markets fundraising declined by 11 percent to $1.2 trillion.” [See source].

The chill was not uniform.

McKinsey notes the following key trends (See source):

• North American fundraising was resilient; Europe and Asia faced challenges
• Investors fled to known names and larger funds
• Dry powder inventory spiked / PE multiples contracted
• PE posted negative performance for the first time since 2008
• Real estate served as an inflation hedge
• Sustainable investing gained scale

On top of the post-pandemic corrections, war in the Ukraine, energy market upheaval, inflation spiking, and interest rates rising rapidly, in early 2023 there came the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) shock to the system setting off a number of dominoes across the international banking system. PitchBook reports, “Venture-backed companies were already facing a capital crunch after market volatility forced investors to slow dealmaking and set higher benchmarks for financing—and now startups’ debt financing options have also taken a hit. Other banks and lenders are stepping in, but no matter how quickly they may be able to stem the fallout, SVB’s collapse is sure to irrevocably change the inner workings of the VC industry.” [See source].

So what is the outlook for PE going forward, particularly for executive employment?

Bain Capital offers an excellent starting point:

“What makes the current economic slowdown different from the one brought on by the global financial crisis is the lack of clarity about what’s happening. There’s no Lehman collapse, no housing meltdown, no sharp falloff in economic activity to signal a definitive sea change. Instead, the global economy is presenting investors with conditions few among them have ever seen before. As if war in Europe, energy shocks, and supply chain issues weren’t enough, inflation hasn’t been this high or persistent in 40 years […]. The resulting rise in interest rates has reversed a downward trend that has defined investment markets for as long as anyone can remember.” [See source.]

To summarize Bain Capital’s arguments, the main issue for PE at the moment is the uncertain outlook, but this uncertainty will not linger. The trends will be revealed in the coming months, and then, once the macroeconomic direction is clear, PE will begin to more aggressively deploy its amassed dry powder in innovation-driving investments.

Bain Capital concludes:

“[…] amid the short-term gloom, there is nothing to suggest the long-term outlook for private capital is any less positive than it was in 2021. Indeed, after attracting an astonishing $10.7 trillion in capital over the last decade, the industry may be getting even more appealing as investors continue to chafe at the limitations of the public markets.” “The industry ended 2022 with a record $3.7 trillion in dry powder, so [General Partners] will be eager to put it to work as soon as possible.” [See source.]

Lenders’ reluctance to invest in large, leveraged deals in the second half of 2022 and the beginning of 2023 also meant that deal size declined. Smaller “add-on” deals have gained share while certain sectors have continued to attract investment regardless: green energy and related projects, for one, health care for another, and, of course, artificial intelligence. See also our Blog entry Upsidedownsizing (Part Three) – Winners and Losers for more information.

On green energy, here are a few headlines:

“A Record $495 Billion Invested in Green Energy in 2022,” reports one source, citing data from BloombergNEF. “Solar investment jumped 36% year-on-year to $308 billion and is estimated to have installed 260 gigawatts of new capacity in 2022. Investment in the second-largest sector, wind, stayed roughly stable at $175 billion, held back by slow procedures for securing permission to build on land and connect to the grid, especially in Europe and North America.”

“According to the Energy Information Administration, […] combined wind and solar generation increased from 12 percent of [US] national power production in 2021 to 14 percent in 2022. Hydropower, biomass, and geothermal added another 7 percent — for a total share of 21 percent renewables last year. The figure narrowly exceeded coal’s 20 percent share of electricity generation, which fell from 23 percent in 2021.” [See source.]

Another source confirms that Europe is also well on the way in its energy transition saying, “The EU installed 41.4 gigawatts (GW) of solar in 2022, up 47% from 2021 […].”

Not surprisingly, LinkedIn reports some 88,300 executives (see Editor’s Note) citing Renewable Energy as a specialization across The US, Canada, EU, UK, and Middle East—an increase of 4% YOY, with a total of 10% having either changed jobs or filled new opportunities—more than 8,000 executive positions.

Here are a few headlines on Health Care:

In the same geography, LinkedIn reports about 10,000 new or refilled executive positions in Health Care in the past year—significant even in a huge market of almost 260,000 executives.

“PE firms announced or closed an estimated 863 deals in 2022, making last year the second-highest on record for activity in the [Health Care] sector, after 2021, according to a new report from market data firm PitchBook. PitchBook has been tracking the data since 2017.” [See source.]

Beyond the need to improve productivity and address staff shortages through automation, why were so many deals realized in Health Care? Forbes summarizes some of the major trends in this industry as follows:

“We’re seeing incredible momentum in areas such as multi-omics and molecular diagnostics, personalized care and digital health solutions that will play an increasingly important role in the future of healthcare delivery. The industry is already taking steps to maximize the potential of advanced technologies, from AI-enabled solutions to digital ecosystems.” [See source.]

And then there is artificial intelligence:

“Generative AI has taken the VC tech space by storm […] in an emerging market that’s expected to grow to more than $42 billion globally in 2023.” [See source].

There is so much hype at the moment about ChatGPT and its ilk, that we will not attempt to summarize it here. Clearly, a huge amount of investment is flowing into this area from small and large companies alike. The main issue may well be finding the talent to unleash the potential of these technologies intelligently.

Fortunately, the Economist informs us that although the tech sector has laid off about 260,000 staff (not only executives) in 2022 and 2023, this pales beside the 685,000 who lost their jobs in the sector during the 2008-2009 downturn [See source].

Also, there seems to be a voracious appetite for the skills these techies offer:

“For years unsexy industries like industrial goods have struggled to compete with the tech industry for talent. Now they are pouncing. John Deere, an American tractor-maker, has been snapping up fired tech workers to help it make smarter farm machinery. Last year the firm opened an office in Austin, a thriving tech hub in Texas. Carmakers, increasingly focused on software, are also hungry for technologists. So are banks, health insurers and retailers.

Some of the laid-off techies are helping fuel a new generation of startups.”

“Applications in January to y Combinator, a startup school in Silicon Valley, were up five-fold on the previous year. Excitement is particularly strong in the buzzy field of Chatgpt-like “generative” artificial intelligence (ai), which uses complex algorithms and oodles of data to produce everything from essays to artworks—so much so that even big tech continues to hire enthusiastically in the area.” [See source.]

LinkedIn cites only about 45,000 executives with artificial intelligence as a specialization, but this cohort has increased by 26% in the past year and another 4,600 changed jobs, so that the total executive opportunity totaled some 15,000 positions.

Opportunities in PE portfolio companies

In our last Private Money series of Blogs, we highlighted an estimated 225,000-300,000 executives active in portfolio companies. Given all we have reported above, this number is only likely to grow over time. In fact, recent research [See source] suggests that the pace of change is likely to increase in this sector. According to a new survey:

“Among PE firm respondents, 54% said they have the right leadership in place at their portfolio companies; only 53% of [portfolio company] executives believe the same…”

“Beyond leadership, 60% of PE firms and 81% of portfolio company leaders said recruitment and retention would be among their most significant challenges in the next 12 months.”

“For company leadership, the challenge of recruitment and retention ranked far above recession risk, higher interest rates and harder-to-access debt, strategy execution, and market volatility.”

All, in all, opportunities for executives in PE portfolio companies can only grow over time. The Barrett Group has been helping executives rethink and reinvent their careers now for more than 30 years, also in the PE space. [Read more.] Particularly if you feel it is time for a new industry, a new role, or a new challenge, you would be well advised to consult the industry leader in career management, recognized by Forbes as one of the best in the business of helping executives discover opportunity.

Peter Irish, CEO
The Barrett Group

Editor’s Note:

In this particular Blog entry “executives” will generally refer to the Vice President, Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Managing Director, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Human Resources Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Information Officer, Managing Partner, General Counsel, Head, and President titles. Unless otherwise noted, the data in this Update will largely come from LinkedIn and represents a snapshot of the market as it was at the time of the research.

Is LinkedIn truly representative? Here’s a little data: LinkedIn has more than 900 million users. (See source) It is by far the largest and most robust business database in the world, now in its 20th year. LinkedIn defines the year-over-year change (YOY Change) as the change in the number of professionals divided by the count as of last year. “Attrition” is defined as the departures in the last 12 months divided by the average headcount over the last year.

Congratulations! You failed!

Congratulations! You failed!

With all due respect to Friederich “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” Nietzsche, failing may be overrated. Of course, after you failed, you should at least try to take a lesson from your failure if for no other reason than not to repeat it.

For Example, One Of My Many Failures Involved The Botched Interview.

In a nutshell, I was interviewing as a managing director for a business in an industry about which I knew relatively little at the outset. But I researched and studied diligently and by the time I was to meet the two principal owners of the company, I had a pretty good understanding—perhaps too good. After the interview, a somewhat sheepish executive recruiter who had organized it told me “They thought you were too well prepared.” He sounded puzzled.

But for me the lesson was clear. I talked too much during the interview instead of asking questions and listening. Interviews are not the time to show off your knowledge. Instead, interviews should be used to collect information so that you can really understand what the potential employer needs and requires. Once you understand that, then you can position yourself…but, not before.

So, at least I learned something from that particular failure, frustrating as it was.

On another occasion, I was due to have “the compensation discussion” for a CEO position. The phone rang and the principal shareholder laid out the verbal offer. It was along the lines of “The base salary is $200,000 and there is a bonus potential of another $200,000.” I asked whether there was any flexibility in this proportion of fixed and variable compensation. The shareholder said, “Is that your response?” I replied something like, “It was merely a question.” He said, “Very well, then we withdraw the offer.”

Well, yes, I was extremely disappointed. But what did I learn? Very simply, try to never enter a negotiation that you are not willing to lose. In other words, try to always have multiple options.

So much for failing.

Even when you are learning as your fail, frankly, it does not feel good. Instead, let’s focus on avoiding failure instead. In the context of career management, the first step is to know clearly what your targets are. For example, when I was a client of the Barrett Group in 2014 I really had no idea what I wanted to do. And as a result, I oscillated back and forth between objectives pursuing first this direction and then that one. I accomplished pretty much nothing in my first few months.

That is why the Barrett Group career change program now begins with the targeting step. We call it the Clarity Program©. This holistic examination of personality, current life circumstances, and longer-term objectives generally assures that clients do not waste time in the market (as I did) trying to figure out what they really want to do.

Think about it as “slow down to speed up.”

Once you are clear on your targets it is so much easier to filter your experience and achievements. You want to position and market yourself to the right audiences. That is the personal branding or “packaging” step of our program. Here is how one client described our value-add:

“I thought I already had a good resume, but man! When the TBG team got hold of my resume and LinkedIn profile, they overhauled them in a way that made such good business sense […] They used language that is not my vernacular. And the way they told my story, by incorporating skills, results, and numerical values from my background to quantify my experience, really showed off how much I had accomplished…” [Joel Engel, Read more.]

Then comes the market access stage. This is when our clients learn how to effectively mine the recruiter market, the published market, and the unpublished market—the latter being where fully 75% of our clients actually land.

Here’s how one client described our impact on her search:

“What I learned about the unpublished market changed my whole approach to job seeking and led to a very successful ending […] To say it’s a dream come true is an understatement. I’m still in shock! I would never have gotten this job without The Barrett Group.” [Bibi, Read more.]

We also help clients avoid pitfalls during the next stage.

In this stage, the preparation step, clients learn how to effectively interview. Clients prepare for those awkward transferability questions. They learn how to explain gaps in their work history. Additionally, due to more than 30 years of experience, we help clients virtually always add $10,000, $20,00, $30,000, or more in total compensation once the offers start to materialize.

Here’s how one client described this step in his program:

“During one interview, I spoke in great detail about my experience because I wanted them to know how broad my background was. What I learned […] is that I should tell them only about talents that relate to the job description – be very specific in my responses to what they need. I found that to be surprising, but it made all the difference. The next interview went much better!” [Ray White, Read more.]

Lastly, even when you have the offer you can still make mistakes during your entry into a new company, industry, and/or role. Our fifth and final “onboarding” step helps highlight the pitfalls in advance and sets clients up to achieve promotion and professional advancement sooner than they might otherwise expect.

So There You Have It.

You can try and sometimes fail on your own, or you can hedge your bets in the executive market by hiring someone who knows the ropes. Forbes magazine says we are one of the very best in the business, so perhaps your key to professional success is indeed the Barrett Group. Give us a call and find out.

Peter Irish, CEO
The Barrett Group

Upsidedownsizing (Part Three): Winners and Losers

Winners and losers. It does not require much conscious thought when you are in danger of drowning to swim toward anything that will keep you afloat, yet in the context of careers, executives often hold on to sinking industries simply because they do not trust themselves to make a change. Employers usually feel no such compunction, of course; witness the recent ruthless downsizing in the tech sector, for example.

So let us consider then which industries are likely to gain or lose executives over the coming period to offer some insight to those in danger of drowning (metaphorically) or perhaps just tired of the same old business and in need of a fresh challenge. In other words, which industries are the winners and losers?

On the downside, we have already explored the tech industry where recent layoffs total 100,000 or more, or we could highlight the banking industry that has seen such turmoil lately due to Silicon Valley Bank, First Republic, Credit Suisse, etc., but let us try instead to take a slightly longer view. One perspective is that of the investor.

Where would smart money invest in winners in the current climate? Money.com offers these thoughts: 

1. Health Care: “Investing experts consider healthcare stocks to be “defensive”, meaning they’re among the companies that perform well no matter how the economy is doing.”
2. Energy: “Energy stocks were the true outlier of 2022. Not only did they gain nearly 60% over the course of the year thanks to a huge run-up in oil prices, they were also the only S&P 500 sector to end the year in the green.”
3. Industrials: “Stocks like Honeywell International, United Parcel Service (UPS) and General Electric are part of the industrials sector [and] stand to benefit from a new focus on sustainability, digitization and domestic onshoring. “ [See source.]

Continuing with the investor perspective, Fidelity offers a neat summary on a number of key US sectors (See source):

• Energy: Strong performance fueled by tight supply
• Information Technology: Looking ahead with cautious optimism
• Health Care: Short-term positives, long-term focus
• Real Estate: Bright spots in the Sun Belt
• Materials: Riding a slowing global growth outlook
• Industrials: The focus on sustainability and US manufacturing mean growth
• Consumer staples: Feeling the pinch
• Consumer discretionary: Rising costs and waning demand
• Financials: Still an out-of-favor sector

In Europe the picture is similar in many respects as energy demand remains strong and prices ease, construction hums, manufacturing shakes off supply chain constraints, retail and consumer businesses hold their breath to see if people will continue to spend, the IT and technology sector demonstrates continued growth, and freight and transportation rebound from their Covid-19 depths. (See source.) Another source predicts exceptional growth in the European automotive sector in 2023. (See source.) 

The Middle East seems to be on a slightly different macroeconomic cycle.

Real estate remains highly active, as does the digital transformation of businesses with its reliance on IT and technology, including strong growth in e-commerce. Civil and military aerospace are also enjoying a resurgence, while Saudi Arabia’s lifting of the ban on women drivers has created a large, new car-buying segment in that country overnight. Telecom’s roll-out of 4G and continued investment to diversify the energy segment round out a broadly positive economic outlook for the Middle East. (See source).

The Barrett Group keeps tabs on an executive population (see Editor’s Note for definitions) that numbers about 9.1 million across Canada, the US, EU, UK, and Middle East. This market has grown about 0.9% over the past year, and seen more than 350,000 change jobs, so that, all told, the opportunities number approximately 430,000 newly created or newly filled executive positions. 

As usual, looking backward is easier than looking ahead. Chart 1 shows the industries that added the most executive positions in the past 12 months. Essentially, what Chart 1 tells us is that some sectors, such as Management Consulting, added a relatively large number of executives in the past year and are still experiencing very high hiring demand now (according to LinkedIn). Other sectors may have added a large number of executives over the past year, for example Real Estate, but are now seeing only moderate hiring demand. Others, Construction for example, have added a moderate number of executives over the last 12 months but demonstrate only low hiring demand at this point in the economic cycle.

Chart 2 lists those industries all rated as having low hiring demand per LinkedIn and the relative change in the executive ranks in each of these over the past year. We provide much more granular data to our clients, of course, than these general industry overviews, but it may well be a good time to think about changing industries if you see relatively low demand and/or growth in yours.

Of course there may be bright spots (i.e. winners) in any one of the industries currently experiencing lower growth, so please do your research before making any rash decisions, but also be aware that finding the Right Role is more important in the long run than just finding a job. 

Chart 3 highlights those industries with high or very high hiring demand per LinkedIn. While the growth data is historical, of course, the hiring demand assessment is more up-to-date and should be somewhat predictive. Bear in mind that an industry can also have low growth and yet high hiring demand if it is difficult to find the right skills such as Telecommunications, for example.

Barrett Group clients exemplify the relative demand for executive talent at the moment, too, landing as they have in these industries over the last six months (Chart 4).

In fact, many of our clients have chosen to change industries for the reasons laid out above, and one of the keys to managing this successfully is to be able to demonstrate the transferability of skills and experience from one industry or role to another.

LinkedIn does not forecast demand for specializations but we can share the relative growth in 2022 and the degree to which companies published want ads for various specializations as a crude index of demand (Chart 5). We say this is “crude” because want ads typically account for no more than 15% of our client landings at the executive level, while accessing the unpublished market generates fully 75% of our clients’ success. (Explore the Unpublished Market for Executives.)

Based on this assessment, clearly Operations as a specialization added the most executive positions and also exhibited strong implied demand. Other specializations with relatively strong demand indicators of 0.5% or more included Finance, Analytical Skills, Accounting, Consulting, Executive Management, Information Technology, and Performance Management.

Notice as you review this data how many of these specializations are relatively generic and could easily be transferred from one industry or role to another.

If you need a little inspiration and a great example of one person who has pursued the right role diligently and succeeded, listen to this interview with Barrett Group client Alisa Preston.

We would be remiss not to mention geography in this context. Demand also varies considerably by location, of course, and Chart 6 provides insight into which cities show the greatest overall vitality with respect to executive positions.

New York is home to more than 569,000 executives by our definition—more than twice second-ranked London (255,000) or almost three times third-ranked Paris (186,000), so it is no wonder that the growth was also the strongest in absolute terms in New York in the past year. Of course banking is a major industry in New York and we may very well see some adjustment as the fallout from the Silicon Valley Bank and other related issues becomes clearer.

Still, in all, 12 major cities fall into the “very high” hiring demand category as listed in Chart 6, while another 11 still rate a “high” hiring demand designation, including Berlin, The Randstad (Netherlands), as well as 9 cities in the US. A further 29 cities are described by LinkedIn as having a “moderate” hiring demand, spanning the US, Europe, and the Middle East. 

Of course, employers actually drive demand more than the location per se. In New York and in London, Citi, JP Morgan, and Goldman Sachs constitute the three largest employers of executives, emphasizing the importance of banking and financial services to these two urban centers.

In Paris, Societe Generale, BNP Paribas, and Total Energies lead the way. Dallas’ largest employers of executives include JP Morgan, Bank of America, and Citi. Chicago hosts Northern Trust Corporation, JP Morgan and Bank of America as the largest on this parameter. State Street, Fidelity, and Bank of America lead the list in Boston while Wells Fargo, Kaiser Permanente, and Accenture hold sway in San Francisco.

Jumping down the list to the high hiring demand area we find Deloitte, M&T Bank, and JLL at home in Washington DC, while in Atlanta Truist, Bank of America and SunTrust employ the most execs.

In the moderate hiring demand category, Los Angeles offers City National Bank, Bank of America and Wells Fargo at the top of the ranking, and in Munich Siemens and BMW hold the honor.

So Who Are The Winners And Losers In The Big Picture?

Certain industries are clearly poised to grow (Chart 3) and will benefit from trends laid down during the Covid-19 pandemic but also from the surge driven by the post-pandemic recovery. Others will benefit from the broad investment in energy and the environment we see rolling out worldwide, but especially in Canada, US, EU, and Middle East. Still others thrive because of the fluid economic environment and the need to rethink processes and value propositions, especially Management Consulting. In terms of specializations, Operations, Finance, Analytical Skills, Accounting, Consulting, Executive Management, Information Technology, and Performance Management all seem to be in relatively high demand. Geographically, some cities are experiencing higher hiring demand (Chart 6) than others, most likely due to their underlying major employers.

At the end of the day, though, in our opinion, the winners are the executives who periodically take the time to review their careers and consider their options instead of blindly following the path of least resistance.

Emotional factors, quality of life, future perspectives, remote versus in-office activity, compensation, culture… these are some of the factors we encourage executives to take into account as they assess their current satisfaction and consider whether they will stay or move. These executives will demonstrably earn more money over their working life times on average than those who merely stay put.

Of course, hiring the Barrett Group resolves the question of how to review your professional opportunities, because our first step (the Clarity Program©) provides the perfect framework for this consideration and produces some fairly profound rethinking. The Barrett Group also greatly simplifies the career management research labor required, and almost invariably improves the offers once they start to flow.

The best thing about this conscious process of managing a career is that each executive can ultimately decide whether to be a winner or not. It is entirely up to you.

Peter Irish, CEO
The Barrett Group

Editor’s Note:  

In this particular Blog entry “executives” will generally refer to the Vice President, Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Managing Director, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Human Resources Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Information Officer, Managing Partner, General Counsel, Head, and President titles.  Unless otherwise noted, the data in this Update will largely come from LinkedIn and represents a snapshot of the market as it was at the time of the research. 

Is LinkedIn truly representative?  Here’s a little data:  LinkedIn has more than 900 million users. (See source.) It is by far the largest and most robust business database in the world, now in its 20th year.  LinkedIn defines the year-over-year change (YOY Change) as the change in the number of professionals divided by the count as of last year and “attrition” as the departures in the last 12 months divided by the average headcount over the last year. 

Choose The Right Role (Not Just Any Role)

Wouldn’t you really rather have a choice of employment offers from two or more companies? Having two offers (or more) gives you leverage when negotiating the terms of that next step. Not to mention being somewhat choosey about the actual role, the benefits, the company culture, etc.

Having a choice of roles is good.

That is why we are often concerned when executives rush to accept the first offer they receive—so happy to have received the offer that they forgo the benefits that postponing instant gratification often deliver.

Even before that stage, we think it critically important to take a little time and think through what it is you actually want in your next executive role. That is why we include the Clarity Program© as the first step in our career change process. This program helps clients reflect holistically on their whole-life circumstances and longer term requirements before committing to target a specific executive role.

Here’s how one successful client described his Clarity Program© experience:

“I’ve had coaches before, but they’ve always tried to change me to conform to the picture of what employers want. Lisa [his Barrett Group Clarity Coach], however, encouraged me to embrace the distinctions in my career and to feel free, frankly, to show them off.”

“The value of the TBG program outweighed the cost in the first three days! Through Clarity, I recognized that I want a job in which I can have higher altitude conversations about vision, depth, architecting, and ‘What is the 5- and 7-year outlook for this company?’. That goal, alone, eliminated half of the positions that I applied for…” [Paul Cabellon, 2022. Read more: Success Studies.]

It requires discipline, of course, to follow our process, but clients who do typically engage in interviews and/or offers within 3-6 months of signing on. Here is a sample of the titles our client have obtained so far in 2023: 

We also help our clients negotiate their compensation packages.

By leveraging our three decades of experience, we almost invariably add $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 or more in total compensation. Here is a selection of their packages so far in 2023.

Most importantly, we help clients exercise choice in their professional futures, realizing dreams they often previously felt were unattainable.

Here are a few examples:

Alisa Preston — Alisa has an incredible range of experience and talents and has never lacked for opportunities, but she didn’t want just any job. She likened her job search to “trying to find a unicorn” — a job that involves everything from robotics to engineering to marine technology. She wasn’t disappointed! She said, “The job I have now includes everything I wanted – every aspect! The diversity of what they do is top-notch, and their integrity aligns with mine. I found the unicorn!” said Alisa. [Read more.]

B Randall Willis — Randall offered talents and experience that anyone would have valued, but he had very specific ideas about what he wanted. He most certainly was in search of “the right role, not just any job.” It was a long search, but he did find the role he wanted. He said, “It’s better than I ever could have expected.” [Read more.]

Elfreda — Elfreda had risen as high as she could go at her organization. She was pretty close to retiring, but felt that she wanted to explore new roles that offered her new challenges. She wanted to be very thoughtful and intentional about her next move and hired TBG to help her. “I knew I had more value,” said Elfreda. “But I wanted to work with an organization where I would feel like a partner on a team and be excited about the work I was doing.” She has been delighted with where she landed! [Read more.]

Now what?

Sure, sometimes it might be necessary to take a stepping stone position to have the title on your resume or the specific functional experience to reach your ultimate goal, or even just to have cash flow while you land the perfect job. That is all perfectly legitimate and part of the personal strategic plan we help each client develop as part of their career management program.

However, you should never settle for second best. Your career is your most important pre-retirement asset—treat it accordingly. Invest in it. Believe in it. If you don’t, who will?

You should also hedge your bets by hiring the preeminent expert on executive career management (recognized by Forbes as one of the best in the business). Choose and hire the Barrett Group. We make it our job to help you find yours.

Peter Irish, CEO
The Barrett Group

INDUSTRY UPDATE: Female Executives

Women appear to be making progress in increasing their share of the C-suite. Specifically, the evidence suggests that 26% of CEOs and Managing Directors in 2021 were women as opposed to 15% in 2019. [See source.] Barrett Group research supports this notion, showing an improvement from 24% to 25% in the female share for all executive categories between 2022 and 2023. (See Editor’s Note.]

What factors are driving this change and where will they lead?

Attention to gender diversity often begins in the board room. “Although these gender disparities exist in boardrooms globally, they also can vary depending on where the company is based. For example, Europe has the highest representation of women on boards at 35 percent, while the Middle East has one of the lowest with only 10 percent of seats held by women, according to Deloitte. Globally, publicly listed companies have a better representation of women on boards (19.7 percent) when compared to US-venture backed private companies (7 percent).” [See source.]

On the other hand, some private equity firms have made diversity a key principle even setting specific targets and reporting on their progress publicly, such as BlackRock, one of the biggest PE firms. Here is what BlackRock says: “Hiring is a leading indicator of the future composition of our employee base and management. In 2021, 47% of our hires and 38% of the senior hires (Directors and above) were women.” [See source.]

If diversity is your principal requirement, then perhaps this ranking may help: Diversity Inc. This firm claims to perform an exhaustive review on multiple parameters to establish which companies are the most diverse. Their top five include: Accenture, Mastercard, Abbott, Toyota Motor North America, and Eli Lilly and Company. Here is what number one ranked Accenture has to say on the subject: “Our commitment starts at the top – 60% of our board of directors are racially and ethnically diverse, and 50% are women including our Chair and CEO Julie Sweet.” [See source.]

The World Bank cites investor pressure as one of the main reasons for the progress women are making, but there may be additional reasons beyond ESG [See source]. Perhaps companies simply need different skills these days in their top management. That is the post-pandemic line of argument offered by this Forbes article: “It means resilience, empathy, agility, ability to articulate, communicate, inspire people, keep people moving forward in very difficult times. All those are skills that a lot of CEOs have had in the past, but they’ve really moved to the forefront.” This logic goes on to suggest that women have been siloed in human resources and sustainability roles historically, but that the skills required for these roles are now even more required in the C-suite. [See source.]

Another line of argument is more provocative: “If you think that men make better leaders, not only do we disagree, but we have the data to back it up! The 32 companies that have women as CEOs have significantly outperformed the companies run by men. Over the past 10 years, the difference in returns is 384% from female-led companies vs. 261% from male-led companies. A few notable companies with women CEOs are GM, UPS, Citigroup, and CVS.” [See source.]

As far as compensation is concerned, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics published Q4 2022 survey data that found women are now earning on average about 83% of what men earn, a ratio that has remained relatively constant over the last few years. (See source.) However, another source claims that female managers as a class of employees now earn approximately 90% of their male counterparts’ pay. In fact, according to the same source, if the income survey results are controlled for equivalent roles, responsibilities, and titles, the pay gap narrows further to just 1%. (See source.) In Europe, “The gender pay gap in the EU stands at 13.0 % in 2020 and has only changed minimally over the last decade. It means that women earn 13.0 % on average less per hour than men.” (See source.)

“Women leaders switch jobs at record rates as they demand better from their workplaces” “Women leaders are saying effectively, ‘We’ve had enough,’ […] ‘We’re ambitious. We want successful careers. But we’re going to go look for organizations that are delivering the work culture that we also want.’ “[See source.]

Of course, biology offers women more choices and more constraints than men.

Obviously, men are not capable of bearing children. This fact has often relegated women to a set of activities and specific roles in many cultures since before we were fully homo sapiens. In general, this has also meant that as education and wealth increased, women tended to have fewer children for various reasons, including the ability to focus on their professional advancement. However, recently, as child care, parental leave, and other benefits have evolved, this pattern has begun to shift so that birth rates are again rising in some of the world’s wealthiest countries. [See “In rich countries, working women and more babies go hand in hand”, the Economist, August 23, 2022.]

On balance then, female business leaders have certainly made some progress, however, employers still have a long way to go to achieve real parity for the sexes at the executive level. For example, in the latest ranking, only 8.2% of the CEOs in the S&P 500 are women [See source]. Indeed, gender shares also vary significantly by industry, role, and location as we will see in some detail later in this Industry Update.

In fact, some women are not waiting for companies to catch up but are simply heading for the door according to a report in Q4 2022 titled “Women leaders switch jobs at record rates as they demand better from their workplaces.” [See source.] This source continues, “Rachel Thomas, the CEO of LeanIn.Org, says that while women leaders are just as ambitious as men, they are leaving their companies — for a number of reasons — at “the highest rate we’ve ever seen.” For every woman at the director level who gets a promotion, two women directors are voluntarily leaving their organization […] “We already know women are underrepresented in leadership, and now companies are starting to lose the precious few women leaders they do have.”” [See source.]

Changing jobs can also bring economic rewards, of course: “Women who found new jobs during the pandemic were slightly more likely to see an increase of over 30% in compensation than men […] For senior-level employees, switching jobs had the biggest pay off. More members of this group — which includes vice presidents, C-suite employees and CEOs — experienced compensation increases of 30% or higher (35%) than other individual contributors who changed jobs during the pandemic (22%).” [See source.]

Let us find out more about the progress women are making at all corporate levels as we explore the facts in this Industry Update.

The Female Executive Market

LinkedIn does not specifically record gender or report on the gender balance at individual companies, so we will need to infer some of our data by looking at the total executive market and the average female share. In these terms, LinkedIn reports 2.15 million women executives as we define them in our target geographies (see Editor’s Note)—25% of the 8.5 million total executive population. Approximately 1.3 million women executives are in the US (27% of total executives), while 821,000 are in the EU and UK (22% of total) and 77,000 (17%) work in the Middle East. We cannot distinguish specific growth rates for women executives, but the overall executive market has grown by 0.8% (1% in the EU/UK and Middle East and 0.7% in the US), while a further 331,000 have changed jobs, leading to a total (male and female) of some 400,000 executive opportunities in the past year.

Selecting titles in descending order by the number of female executives, Chart 1 says for example that there are more female CEOs than any other title, but that these female CEOs represent only about 25% of the total number of CEOs in our target geography per LinkedIn. Conversely, Chief Human Resource Officers are apparently predominantly female (65%) although there are relatively few of them at 7,279.

The common wisdom seems to be that women are more empathetic and effective in dealing with the emotional territory of human resources, however, that does not explain why women also tend to occupy more executive marketing or general counsel positions.

In some ways, Chart 2 might be seen to debunk those preconceived notions by showing New Business Development as the second most frequent female executive specialization until you notice that only 18% of these professionals are female. This area along with Sales Management tends to be quite well-remunerated, and in both cases the female executive share is quite low (17-18%). If any specialization requires emotional intelligence, surely sales and business development do. So why are there as yet relatively few women executives in these critical roles?

Areas where women’s shares stand out include Nonprofit Organizations, Fundraising, Human Resources, Leadership Development, Marketing Communications, Social Networking, Organizational Development, and Public Policy. In general, these all do tend to require people skills, but then how do we explain that Finance and Budgeting occupy two of the top five spots, skills are long known for a focus on facts?

The simple answer is probably that women occupy roles that organizations make available to them, and not because of any innate proclivities based on gender, so, as we addressed in the introduction, it is indeed management attitudes that most closely define where women can develop professionally. In that sense, the evolving view from the board room and the inspiring examples set by current female CEOs—these will determine the future and the weight of precedent should continue to lessen over time.

LinkedIn does not provide the gender share for individual companies, so it is difficult to address this parameter except by bringing in external, specialist perspectives. We have already referred in the introduction to one excellent source on this subject, Diversity Inc., that publishes a ranking of the most diverse companies, although gender share is not their only criterion.

In fact, Diversity Inc.’s top ten ranking covers a surprisingly broad range of industries, including IT Services, Financial Services, Healthcare, Automotive, Food, Media & Entertainment, Insurance, and Medical Devices. In other words, increasingly it appears that if you as an executive do not appreciate your employer’s culture, you have a choice.

Chart 3 covers the industries with the most female executives, their gender share, and the relative hiring demand (for all genders) in that sector according to LinkedIn. For example, Non-profit Organization Management as an industry employs the most female executives in total and boasts a 45% female share among its executives—quite high by comparison to others on the chart—while LinkedIn rates the hiring demand in this sector as “high.”

Perhaps understandably, Cosmetics demonstrates the highest female executive share (54%) although incumbents number only about 21,000 and the hiring demand seems to be “moderate.”

Mental Health Care and Public Relations & Communications are also relatively small in total volume of female executives, though their female shares are high (49% each), and the hiring demand is rated as “high.”

Barrett Group clients, of course, have access to considerably more detailed information on industries, companies, and even hiring executives, but even if you are embarking on a search without professional support, always perform adequate research first! For example, the very high hiring demand in several industries in Chart 3 could make them more attractive if you have affinity for their sphere of activity.

The Barrett Group routinely helps executives change industries, roles, and locations by helping them to articulate the transferability of their skills and experience persuasively. Gone are the days that an executive was wedded to a specific industry simply because that is where her professional history lay.

That applies to location, too, of course. Chart 4 provides an overview of which locations have the largest female executive populations. Note that the Executive Change data is for female and male executives as is the Hiring Demand data because LinkedIn does not separate these data points by gender.

If you are feeling more entrepreneurial, you may find a ranking such as this one (Best Cities for Female Entrepreneurs) useful, but other rankings look at housing, benefits, educational opportunities, etc. Again, our advice is to never stint on research when making an important career decision. For Europe, this ranking is also of interest, factoring in quality of life along with many other variables: Top Six Cities of Quality of Life, though perhaps not only for female executives. As far as the overall gender share is concerned in European cities, this interesting source suggests that Riga, Vilnius, Lisboa, Madrid, Porto, Budapest, Zagreb, and Genoa have the highest overall share of women in their populations.

Education (Chart 5, Top 10 universities by number of female execs) may also be career-relevant, though it seems odd to see the first European schools joining this ranking at number #26 (Cambridge), #32 (Oxford), #38 (London, LSE), and #39 (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), and all of these latter four have rather low female shares by comparison to the top ten. Nevertheless, educational institutions can be powerful factors in intentional career networking, and are not to be taken lightly.

Peter Irish, CEO
The Barrett Group

Click here for a printable version of this Industry Update – Female Executives 2023

Editor’s Note:

In this particular Update “executives” will generally refer to the Vice President, Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Managing Director, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Human Resources Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Information Officer, Managing Partner, General Counsel, Head, and President titles. Unless otherwise noted, the data in this Update will largely come from LinkedIn and represents a snapshot of the market as it was at the time of the research.

Is LinkedIn truly representative? Here’s a little data: LinkedIn has more than 900 million users. (See source) It is by far the largest and most robust business database in the world, now in its 20th year. LinkedIn defines the year-over-year change (YOY Change) as the change in the number of professionals divided by the count as of last year and “attrition” as the departures in the last 12 months divided by the average headcount over the last year.

INDUSTRY UPDATE: e-Commerce

Introduction E-Commerce

As a definition of e-commerce “commercial transactions taking place over the internet” seems a bit general. Virtually every business has this characteristic in the meantime. In fact, in this context, we usually think of the big firms that have evolved to be largely internet-based sellers of goods. Here, for example, are allegedly the largest e-commerce firms by sales (See source: NOTE: This list excludes players based outside the US, UK, EU, and Middle East; four out of the top five worldwide are actually based in China):

How is the sector evolving? “In 2021, total US ecommerce sales reached $959.5 billion, an 18.3 percent year-over-year increase from $811.6 billion in 2020.” (See source.)

More recently the US Commerce Department reports, “The third quarter 2022 e-commerce estimate increased 10.8 percent (±1.2%) from the third quarter of 2021 while total retail sales increased 9.1 percent (±0.4%) in the same period. E-commerce sales in the third quarter of 2022 accounted for 14.8 percent of total sales.” (See source.)

Beyond the e-commerce specialists, bricks and mortar firms have been catching up fast too, notably Walmart, Target, Home Depot among many others in the US. For example, “According to recent data, Walmart’s online sales […] hit $67.39 billion in 2021, the highest ever recorded. This also makes up 7.2% of the total US ecommerce sales in 2021.” (See source.) “Globally, ecommerce sales penetration continues to climb, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said during a Nov. 15 [2022] conference call. “So far this year, 13% of our total sales as a company now start in a digital fashion,” McMillon said, […]. Online penetration for Walmart International, which encompasses Walmart’s non-U.S. operations, is 20%, he added.” (See source.)

Morgan Stanley sounds rather upbeat on the prospects for further e-commerce growth, too, saying, “Over the long term, the e-commerce market has plenty of room to grow and could increase from $3.3 trillion today to $5.4 trillion in 2026. “We believe that the Covid-driven bump will not flatten future e-commerce growth,” says Brian Nowak, an equity analyst covering the U.S. internet industry. He sees e-commerce reaching 27% of retail sales by 2026. “Across the world, we have yet to see a ceiling for e-commerce penetration.”” (See source.)

Europe continues to see growth in e-commerce as well with 91% of consumers now having access to the internet and 75% claiming to have purchased goods on line (See source). McKinsey reports, “while e-commerce penetration is slightly lower in some EMEA markets than in the United States (online represented 14.4 percent of total sales in Western Europe in 2021 versus 15.3 percent in the United States). In others, it is significantly higher. Online sales comprise 28.3 percent of retailer revenue in the United Kingdom and 18.1 percent in Germany…” (See source.)

In the Middle East, the forecast is also for significant growth: “…the share of online retail as a percentage of total retail sales in the Middle East stands at little more than 2%. Even in the wealthiest countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), e-commerce sales are only 3% of total retail. For comparison, e-commerce in the US reached 2% of total retail sales way back in 2004 and now stands at around 14%. But rapid growth is forecast in the Middle East. E-commerce sales are expected to increase by more than 11% each year.” (See source.)

What then will drive this growth, and what are the hottest trends in e-commerce?

There are numerous lists available on the internet. We think this one is reasonably representative of important trends that will affect the development of e-commerce in the near term:

• Leveraging big data for next-level personalization
• Versatile payment options
• Subscriptions to drive retention
• Chatbots for better customer support
• Shoppable video content
• Artificial Intelligence driven strategies
• Augmented and Virtual Reality experiences
• Authenticity and sustainability 
• Mobile shopping no longer just optional
• Customer privacy (See source.)

It appears then that e-commerce has a lot of running room, and plenty of trends to help power that growth. What does this mean for the executive market? Let’s find out.

The Market For Executives

Approximately 250,000 fit our executives definition (see Editor’s Note) in this industry vertical, some 130,000 in the EU, UK, and Middle East and 120,000 in the US. Overall, this cohort is growing at about 1% per year in the latest period and some 7% have changed positions, meaning there were about 20,000 executive opportunities in this space in the past year.

New York, London, Los Angeles, Paris, and San Francisco are the most frequent locations for these roles which are predominantly held by men (circa 81%). LinkedIn describes these executives as being hard to find and therefore hiring demand is said to be very high while the median tenure is 2.9 years.

We believe that this industry is relatively unconcentrated, in that the number of CEOs is high relative to the number of Vice Presidents and other titles (see Chart 1).

While the female executive share is relatively low in comparison to some other industries, there are titles that stand out in this respect, notably Chief Marketing Officer and General Counsel.

In terms of specializations (Chart 2), not surprisingly, Online Marketing and Digital Marketing top the list, though more general skills such as Start-ups, Entrepreneurship, Business Development, and Social Media Marketing are not far behind. Bear in mind that the specializations listed here are gleaned from executives’ LinkedIn profiles and relatively few will list only one specialization.

Nevertheless, if you search the web for “key skills for success in e-commerce” you are likely to find a list such as this one (See source):

• Copywriting
• SEO
• Facebook marketing
• Graphic design
• Email marketing
• Google Analytics
• Product photography
• Accounting
• Project management
• Microsoft Excel

Perhaps the specific references to Facebook and Microsoft might be viewed more generically as social media and analytical skills, however, all of these “key skills” appear in one form or other in Chart 2, though at scale companies need to manage whole teams of people engaged in any given specialization so that the whole dimension of “management” comes into play (e.g., Sales Management, Product Management, etc.).

It is indeed curious that female executives remain relatively scarce in this industry, reaching a peak in predictable subject areas such as Marketing Communication, Brand Development, Market Research, Social Networking, and Recruiting. At least according to one source, 72% of women and 68% of men shop online (in the US). The way the sexes shop is also apparently quite different. In short, more female executives would probably be good for this industry’s future.

As we often point out, many of the skills listed in Chart 2 are highly transferable from and to other industries, so if you feel that you are in an industry that has little room to grow you might want to consider a change. The Barrett Group’s career change process begins with a thorough exploration of clients’ interests, experience, skills, and aspirations and often leads to surprising epiphanies that may completely change our clients’ professional targets. (Learn more.)

Now some of the professionals we are exploring provide services to other companies while some work directly for the service or product supplier. (We will explore employer companies later in this Update.)

Whether they work directly for the seller of goods and services or provide services to another company, which industries actually employ e-commerce executives?

Chart 3 explores this question showing that about half of these executives are engaged in just four industries: Marketing & Advertising, Information Technology & Services, Computer Software, and Internet while Retail comes in only in sixth place.

In the past year, Non-profit Organization Management, Venture Capital & Private Equity, Staffing & Recruiting all grew about four times faster than the e-commerce segment as a whole, followed by Investment Management, Management Consulting, and Accounting—all growing 2 to almost 3 times faster.

Other industries contracted sharply, particularly Telecommunications and Consumer Electronics and to a lesser extent, Consumer Goods, Health, Wellness & Fitness, and Restaurants. 

There is no necessary correlation between the growth in the number of executives and the hiring demand, though these often go hand in hand. Take the second and third-ranked industries on Chart 3, for example, Information Technology & Services and Computer Software. These were not among the fast growers, but LinkedIn still says these industries exhibit a very high hiring demand.

Or look at Venture Capital & Private Equity versus Banking adjacent to one another in Chart 3. One belongs to the fast-growing verticals while the other is actually contracting yet both see very high hiring demand according to LinkedIn due to skill scarcity.

Generally, it is best to approach a change of careers with your eyes open and with as much information as you can reasonably obtain. This is another reason thoughtful executives hire the Barrett Group to buttress their searches because each client is supported by a team of six professionals, including a research analyst with access to numerous data resources.

Those research capabilities could be useful, of course, when examining data such as in Chart 4, because some of this year-on-year growth is real and some of it may have been undercut by layoffs in the new year, for example, at Goldman Sachs. Google, Amazon, SAP, and Salesforce are already showing some of the effects from their restructuring. However, overall, retail banks make more money when interest rates rise so there may be good reason for their growth.

In fact, banks (retail and investment) number at least 12 out of the top 50 e-commerce executive employers on Chart 4. As a cohort, this group employs about 4,400 e-commerce executives, a group that has grown by 3% in the past year. We may not think about banking first when we think of e-commerce, but banks are obviously heavily investing in this field.

Take JPMorgan Chase & Co. According to LinkedIn, the company increased their overall Vice President rank by 11% in the most recent 12 month period to about 14,400, though they also added significantly to their Software Engineer teams (all titles, not only executives) to reach 8,000 (+25%). The growth at JPMorgan has been relatively steady during 2022, with significant give and take from Citi, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, etc., but also net talent acquisition from Tata Consultancy Services and Accenture.

Accenture Song also stands out at least as an intriguing name, not to mention due to 31% growth in their e-commerce executive team. This unit presents itself to be a life-style consultancy attempting to capture advantage from a unique understanding of consumer and client behavior. Their talent acquisition approach has been to acquire whole teams and/or business units from previous acquisitions Fjord (design), SinnerSchrader (digital marketing), and a fair number from Accenture itself.

On Chart 4 Stealth Startup also stands out, posting 100% growth, however, since their company website is a Wikipedia page and their LinkedIn job postings appear to be for different companies we believe this is more of an umbrella for multiple startup companies that do not wish to be clearly identified as yet, hence their need for stealth.

Chart 5 reveals the locations with the largest e-commerce executive populations, fastest YOY growth and highest hiring demand. There is not too much mystery here, as these are the locations of the largest employers, however, it is interesting to see how many of the fastest growing locations are not in the US, including the UAE, Milan, Hamburg, Egypt, Frankfurt, Romania, and Cologne.

LinkedIn also identifies numerous locations with high or very high hiring demand in this sector, whether they have grown quickly or not, presumably due to a skill shortage.

Peter Irish, CEO
The Barrett Group

Click here for a printable version of Industry Update – e-Commerce 2023.

Editor’s Note:

In this particular Update “executives” will generally refer to the Vice President, Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Managing Director, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Human Resources Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Information Officer, Managing Partner, General Counsel, Head, and President titles. Unless otherwise noted, the data in this Update will largely come from LinkedIn and represents a snapshot of the market as it was at the time of the research.

Is LinkedIn truly representative?

Here’s a little data: LinkedIn has more than 800 million users. (See Source) It is by far the largest and most robust business database in the world, now in its 19th year. LinkedIn defines the year-over-year change (YOY Change) as the change in the number of professionals divided by the count as of last year and “attrition” as the departures in the last 12 months divided by the average headcount over the last year. 

Where are the Executive Jobs?

It currently seems that both Europe and the US will narrowly avoid a recession, even though inflation continues to pose a threat, and interest rates are likely to rise a bit more. Still, there is tremendous life in the market for executives regardless of the economic cycle—especially in the unpublished market.

In fact, we have seen 75 clients land executive roles in recent weeks. Here is a sample of the titles they have obtained (find more information on our Weekly Frontline Reports):

Bear in mind that a senior manager may well have higher total compensation than a VP or C-level officer depending on the size of company and the industry. Here is a selection of their packages—virtually all of which were improved by the Barrett Group leaning in at the negotiation stage with our three decades of experience in helping executives manage their careers.

Of course, there is a constant churn in the macroeconomy with some industries or companies always gaining or losing opportunities.

See our recent Industry Update on the Big Tech sector, for example. In fact, LinkedIn tells us that some industries are experiencing very high hiring demand at the moment. We have isolated them in this chart, and encourage all to think twice about whether you are currently on the right horse or whether your skills would not be more appreciated in some other industry or role.

The Barrett Group specializes in helping executives transition by superbly illustrating the transferability of their skills and experience—one of the many reasons our clients are so successful in their career changes.

One particularly strong opportunity remains the green energy revolution that has been significantly accelerated by recent events. (See our Industry Update on Energy.) The Economist, for example, reports that the war in Ukraine and the consequent tightening of energy markets has greatly accelerated green energy in part by making brown energy more expensive. (“War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition”, The Economist, February 15, 2023.) PitchBook also reports that this green energy sector had no problem raising $13.8 Billion in new private equity capital in 2022 (See source). That means a lot of executive opportunity.

In any case, if you are concerned about your industry’s future, or if your career is not progressing at the rate you feel is commensurate with your talent and achievements, we can help you take that next step as we have helped literally thousands of executives who are serious about investing in their careers. After all, your career is typically your largest pre-retirement asset, so it only makes sense to invest in its maintenance and growth rather than leaving it to chance.

Contact the Barrett Group. We make it our job to help you find yours.

Peter Irish, CEO
The Barrett Group

INDUSTRY UPDATE: Big Tech

When minus 26.8% is the best performance in a peer group, clearly the group’s performance was dismal. And yet, that is how 2022 shook out for big tech stocks.

They were not alone, of course, with other tech darlings such as Salesforce or Tesla also performing poorly. In fact, the entire tech-heavy NASDAQ ended up -33% versus the more balanced S&P 500 at “just” -20%. (See source1 and see source2).

Rising inflation, crypto’s trauma, general market anxiety, increasing interest rates, and outright mistakes such as Meta’s big bet on the Metaverse all played a role in these negative consequences. But the underlying health of these companies is not in question, especially as most of them reacted by slashing employment in late 2022 or early 2023.

The same source goes on to quote the respective CEOs along the lines, “We hired too many as the pandemic subsided and now we have to rightsize the company for the business we expect.” (See source.)

We are of course sympathetic to all who were affected by these layoffs, but … “Sacked techies should not struggle to get work. Lots of old-economy firms need their skills. Walmart, despite its lay-offs, keeps snatching up data scientists and other hypernumerate types. Already 59% of tech professionals work outside the tech sector […]” (Economist: December 4, 2022, Is a white-collar recession looming?)

Let us also consider that there exist only moderately relevant parameters to compare between these companies who by and large are not in direct competition with each other except in discrete parts of their businesses.

Famously, Amazon sells products (branded and own-label) and provides web server capacity and services. To attract eyeballs it also gives away content (or makes it available cheaply) via its Prime Video unit, content that a Disney or Netflix relies on to sell as part of their core businesses. Apple also makes products but only its own while it attempts to creep into the content business. Alphabet (Google) provides search services and sells advertising—so effectively that it has attracted competition authorities in both the US and Europe and may be required to sell off or open up in coming years. Microsoft mainly sells or licenses software. Meta provides a number of social media platforms and sells advertising.

So, what do they have in common? Skilled executives, for one.

This describes the general situation for why the executive market has developed as it has: “Managerial and professional occupations now make up 44% of total employment, up from 34% in 2000, according to the [US Bureau of Labor Statistics…].” “Automation and offshoring have meant fewer technicians and cashiers, but lots more business analysts and systems architects.” [The Economist, Is a white-collar recession looming? December 4, 2022.]

However, the way that these five tech companies utilize talent is demonstrably different, presumably due to their different strategies. We will cover more details later, however, here is a snapshot of one professional focus (software engineers) and a direct comparison of the number employed and the share of the overall workforce (per LinkedIn and generally before the most recent restructuring.)

Simply put, Apple and Amazon do not need such a large share of software engineers because their business is more about physical products than software.

Now let us review these firms’ prospects briefly.

Stock analysts’ consensus points to strong performance from Apple in 2023 due to Apple’s leadership in the smartphone market and continued robust demand for the latest iPhone models. The company’s services segment is also expected to improve (e.g., Apple TV). (See source.)

Amazon has encountered significant headwinds in 2022 that will not necessarily abate in 2023, specifically a slowing of consumer spending as well as a slower growth in demand for its AWS services. However, for the longer term, the company is very well placed with improving advertising revenues, growing share of e-commerce in overall retail, and the market for cloud services still significantly underdeveloped. (See source.)

Alphabet has also suffered due to stalled advertising revenue growth in 2022, and may see more pain before things get better, but the outlook for on-line advertising continues to be rosy in the long run, and that bodes well for the company’s main business, Google. It is difficult to assess the probability of regulatory action at the moment as the US Justice Department has only recently filed its action. However, two other important positives for the company include You-Tube which generates “ad revenue that’s in the same ballpark as streaming giant Netflix’s total revenue” (see source) and the Google Cloud business that is well positioned to take share as companies continue to migrate toward cloud-based solutions.

While it is the largest software company by sales in the world, that legacy also weighs on Microsoft as PC sales continue to soften.

Continued working from home may reverse or slow this decline. Companies’ on-going process digitization and migration to the cloud will lift Microsoft as well. Whether AI-driven ChatGPT will be a game changer is still an open question. (See source.) The integration of LinkedIn into Microsoft seems to be proceeding rather slowly so far (see source) possibly so as to avoid mistakes the company has made on acquisitions in the past. Then there are Microsoft’s gaming ambitions, even if their most recent Activision purchase is in limbo (see source), in the console market, Microsoft’s Xbox holds roughly a 20% revenue share that is expected to grow. (See source.)

Meta (Facebook) has an even more complicated story.

“Meta has seemingly gone the route of Amazon.com’s […] strategy of reinventing itself at the literal expense of short-term earnings. If the company’s pivot to the metaverse is successful, it may stand as one of the most impressive pivots investors have seen from a tech company over the next couple of decades.” (See source.) Meta faces the challenge of cutting operating costs while investing in the infrastructure required to realize its virtual reality vision even as competition in the on-line ads market heats up. “The bottom line is that Meta’s US digital advertising market share is set to contract significantly this year, from 23.6% to 18.4%, according to eMarketer.” (See source.) 

Comparisons then between these companies are of limited value because many of these firms’ competitors are actually in other industries (entertainment, retail, electronics, and gaming). Straddling multiple verticals can be an advantage, of course, but also a distraction or an outright drain on resources.

One factor that unites them is that they all require top-notch executive talent to navigate these stormy seas.

Obviously the recently announced restructuring programs are not yet reflected in these figures. We plan to provide an update after the results have settled somewhat.

The Executive Market-Big Tech

These five companies employ approximately 2,500 executives as we define them (see Editor’s Note), a population that grew by 11% in the past year with another 13% having changed jobs in the same period. All in all, that is a very high “churn” in comparison to other industries. 

At the same time, LinkedIn reports that the median tenure for these positions is a rather long 6.3 years. Almost 1,600 of these roles are in the US while the balance are in the EU, UK, and Middle East. According to LinkedIn, these are their respective Executive headcounts.

Chart 1 provides an overview of the titles in this group of firms which indicates the extremely concentrated structure of the top leadership (very few C-level in comparison to all other senior manager positions). “Head” seems to be the most popular title followed by MD and Vice President.

Big Tech has its own geography, too.

We see from Chart 2 where the preponderance of positions still lies on the West Coast followed by New York, London, and the UAE. Microsoft and Amazon predominate in Seattle with some 106,000 total staff between them while Apple, Google, and Meta employ 110,000 in the San Francisco Bay area. Google and Amazon employ about 34,000 in New York while the other three station a further 3,000-5,000 each in that city. Amazon has 11,000 or so in London while the others staff smaller contingents of 3,000-5,000 there. Executive populations reflect these employee concentration, of course. (See the Appendix for more details.)

Bearing in mind that most executives will have more than one string to their bows, so to speak, Chart 3 profiles the specializations of this executive population as they have recorded them in their LinkedIn profiles.

As a means for evaluating what is particularly important to these companies versus the mass of executive employers, let us compare specialization rankings. Taking the entire 8.5 million executive population that the Barrett Group refers to as “executives” in the US, EU, UK and Middle East (see Editor’s Note for further definition) as a baseline cohort, Cloud Computing does not even show up in the top fifty specializations. Strategic Partnerships does, however, though at a rather distant #45 in the ranking versus #2 for Big Tech, so clearly this is more important for the Big Tech cohort. 

To simplify this comparison, we have added the Baseline Ranking for the first twenty Big Tech specializations in Chart 3 in the “Baseline Ranking” column. As a refresher, in Chart 4 we display also the top twenty specializations in the baseline cohort.

Even though the Big Tech firms are not highly comparable, they are all large in scale so that the degree of specialization is very different than in the baseline cohort.

Since most of their sales occur online they have a very different relationship to the sales function, for example, and do not require as many sales executives relative to their sales. The same is true with the New Business Development function probably for the same reason.

Barrett Group clients have access to considerably more granular data, of course, critical for choosing target employers or preparing for interviews. Here we can only offer general overviews that may prove helpful in the first stages of a career change initiative. Considering the vast resources that Big Tech puts into programming, it may be a little surprising not to see more executives involved in managing that function. As a sampling, please see Chart 5 that summarizes the programming employment (not only execs) within Big Tech. .Net Framework, C, C+, HTML, iOS, Java, Linux, Python, SQL… the list of software languages and the numbers involved are both fairly staggering. This may also explain some of the layoffs in 2022 and 2023: hiring greatly exceeded current requirements.

Contemplating Chart 5 there are also interesting dissimilarities such as Amazon’s focus on Supply Chain Management and Human Resources (given its enormous workforce), or the fact that only Apple and Amazon show significant resource under Customer Experience and/or Satisfaction. Perhaps other firms use other names for these skills.

Customarily in each Industry Update we like to examine the movement of staff to and from players experiencing large changes. This may not be a good time to make this assessment, however, because of the restructuring that has been announced by all but Apple among the Big Tech cohort.

Here is how one source put it: “Apple never hired at the pace of these other tech giants, […] You’ll see cost-cutting around the edges, but Cupertino — I mean, they’re tacticians…I think it just shows why Cook is a Hall of Fame CEO. And I think he’s able to navigate another situation here in terms of not needing to do the layoffs that other tech firms have done.” (See source.)

In fact, Apple seems to be on a talent acquisition spree at the moment based on the very short-term movements visible through LinkedIn, major talent donors include Amazon, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Intel. Indeed industrially speaking, some 800 staff (not only executives) in the Semiconductor industry joined Apple in the past year, 500 from Higher Education, 400 from Apparel & Fashion, 400 from Retail, and another 270 from Telecommunications. 

Alphabet (Google) shows a net 1,400 departures (all staff, not just executives) already in January 2023 per LinkedIn, but, looking back at the year past, there have also been significant staff additions from the Computer Software (+4,000), Internet (+2,600), IT & Services (+1,800), Higher Education (1,100), and Marketing & Advertising (+800) industries. Major donors included Amazon and AWS, Microsoft, Mandiant (now part of Google Cloud), Salesforce, Meta, Oracle, and even Apple.

Amazon despite prior and coming layoffs shows a gain in employment in January 2023 per LinkedIn. Over the past year, net talent acquisition (of all staff, not just executives) stems from the IT & Services area (+2,600), Higher Education (+2,400), Retail (+800), Banking (+900), and Management Consulting (+800). Major net talent donors included Accenture, Tata Consultancy Services, and Deloitte.

Microsoft shows a fairly stable total employment still in January per LinkedIn. Over the past year, industries of focus in terms of all staff have included Computer Software (+1,500), IT & Services (+3,000), Internet (+700), Higher Education (+900), Telecommunications (+900), Management Consulting (+700), Computer & Network Security (+400), Banking (+400), and Semiconductors (+400). Major sources for these employees comprised Amazon and AWS, Oracle, IBM, Accenture and Xandr.

Meta shows a spike in departures during January 2023, in line with its public pronouncements. Over the past year, the company has recruited staff (not just executives) significantly in the Computer Software (+1,800), Internet (+1,700), IT & Services (+700), Higher Education (+900), Banking (+400), Management Consulting (+240), Semiconductors (+240), Financial Services (+170), and Capital Markets (+160) industries. The major talent contributors included Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Kustomer, and Capital One.

Chart 6 provides a window of comparison to e-commerce executives, albeit an imperfect one because e-commerce firms also differ widely in terms of their commercial objectives and service or product offerings, however, they do provide a useful comparison to Big Tech. Many of the industries we have just reported as being in focus for Big Tech also rank at the top of the list for e-Commerce, in particular IT & Services, Computer Software, Internet, Management Consulting, and Retail. As noted above, the number of Marketing & Advertising execs in Big Tech is relatively smaller most likely due to their sheer scale.

Note too that these industry executives (Chart 6) are not all equally in demand.

LinkedIn provides not only the growth data year over year per industry but also the relative strength of hiring demand. Higher Education, for example, shows up frequently in Big Tech’s hiring activity and is also in high demand per the e-Commerce cohort. On the other hand, Retail seems overall to experience lower demand though it did play a larger role for Apple and Amazon.

We do not have specific data from LinkedIn on the gender composition per company and therefore cannot profile this in the Big Tech cohort, but we can see from the aggregate e-Commerce data (Chart 6) that the share of female executives in these industries is relatively low overall with a few spikes in Non-profit Organization Management, Apparel & Fashion Professional Training & Coaching, and Civic & Social Organization. Big Tech and e-Commerce firms are all likely to be incentivized to improve this diversity performance over time hopefully because it makes good business sense or at least due to pressure from ESG investors.

We encourage readers to look beyond the short-term pain in the Big Tech companies and see the bigger picture. While Alphabet may yet have to shed business units due to regulatory pressure, none of these firms is in danger of capsizing. Rather, they all will be around in the longer term, though their business models may well morph surprisingly.

As one recently downsized executive told the Barrett Group, “It’s never a bad thing to have Google on your resume.” The same can be said for any of these Big Tech firms.

Research to the Rescue

Typically executives who come to the Barrett Group for assistance in their career change initiatives are not afraid of hard work, but they would rather put their efforts into well-directed campaigns supported by strong research so as to have a high likelihood of achieving their professional objectives as quickly as possible.

By this time, readers may have gained an appreciation for the amount of information that the Barrett Group can and does provide to our clients. We also support each client with a six-member team including a research expert who can help sharpen the target(s) and shorten the road to success.

We make it our job to help you find yours! (Read more.)

Peter Irish, CEO
The Barrett Group

Click here to for a printable version of Industry Update – Big Tech 2023.

Appendix – Total Staff per Location per LinkedIn

This detailed location data may well exceed some readers’ level of interest. Still industry observers will find it interesting to note the geographic resonance or dissonance between these firms. We have already noted the importance of Seattle for Microsoft and Amazon versus the emphasis on San Francisco for Meta, Google, and Apple.

Other locations are perhaps even more interesting as they reveal different emphases: Meta in London, for example, or Bengaluru, Toronto, the UAE, and Washington DC for Amazon. What does Google do in Zurich? How does Ireland fit in for Apple, Meta, Microsoft and Google? What does this mean for executives who want to change countries and companies?

Fortunately, our research team can help curious clients answer these and many other questions.

Editor’s Note:

In this particular Update, “executives” will generally refer to the Vice President, Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Managing Director, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Human Resources Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Information Officer, Managing Partner, General Counsel, Head, and President titles. Unless otherwise noted, the data in this Update will largely come from LinkedIn and represents a snapshot of the market as it was at the time of the research.

Is LinkedIn truly representative?

Here’s a little data: LinkedIn has more than 800 million users. (See source.) It is by far the largest and most robust business database in the world, now in its 19th year. LinkedIn defines the year-over-year change (YOY Change) as the change in the number of professionals divided by the count as of last year. “Attrition” is defined as the departures in the last 12 months divided by the average headcount over the last year.