Introducing the 2021 Remote Influencer Report

Who are the leaders of the future of work? Who are the people creating tools to empower remote teams, advocating for remote-first practices, and leading their organizations through the change?

We wanted to know, too. So we went out and found them.

Today, we published The 2021 Remote Influencer Report. This is not a simple collection of remote work advocates on social media: this is an all-new approach to categorizing and capturing the impact of the biggest players in remote work today, both on the front lines and behind the scenes. We hope this report will help you broaden your understanding of the remote work landscape and the most prominent voices within it.

Download the report now!

Why conduct this research now?

We could have provided a long list of influential remote work advocates, but that would only tell part of the story. We wanted to go deeper — to identify the people bringing real value to the remote work space.

Who can help companies make a smooth remote transition? Who saw the early days of remote work and has the wisdom of experience today? Who offers the best advice for company leaders, remote workers, and everyone in between? No one had that knowledge available. Once we realized that, we knew we needed to create The 2021 Remote Influencer Report.

Who is in the report?

To ensure we captured the full range of major players in remote work, we split the top 75 influencers into three groups: Innovators, Enablers, and Accelerators.

Remote Innovators

Plenty of people have claimed to be remote work experts since the start of the pandemic. Remote Innovators, however, have been laying the groundwork for remote teams for several years.

Think of the Innovators as the pioneers of remote work. They collaborated across distances before remote work tools were common. They built companies without offices before anyone had heard of such a thing. Through strategy, foresight, and a little trial and error, they created the models that drove today’s global shift toward remote work.

Some Innovators we identified include:

• Jeanne Meister, Founder of Future Workplace Academy

• Darren Murph, Head of Remote at GitLab

• Adam Grant, Organizational Psychologist

Remote Enablers

Without the Remote Enablers, everyone working remotely would still be making phone calls and sending emails for every project. This group saw the opportunity of remote work and recognized that the world needed better tools to make the distributed future a reality. So, they got to work and made their own.

Remote Enablers include founders of remote-empowering companies, coaches and trainers helping organizations make the shift, and strategists experimenting with remote work best practices.

Some Enablers we identified include:

• Amir Salihefendi, Founder & CEO at Doist

• Nadia Rawlinson, Chief People Officer at Slack

• Monica Kang, Founder at InnovatorsBox

Remote Accelerators

When we talk about the future of work, we’re talking about the experiments happening right now to push the boundaries of what work can be. The Remote Accelerators are the leaders conducting those experiments.

Accelerators are HR executives, top business journalists, and company leaders making the permanent shift to remote work. Their actions and words drive entire industries forward. It’s thanks to them that the past year of remote work experimentation will not be an anomaly but the first major step toward a revolution. Using the wisdom unearthed by the Innovators and the tools created by the Enablers, the Accelerators are carving the path ahead.

Some Accelerators we identified include:

• Beth Galetti, Senior Vice President of Human Resources at Amazon

• Micah Alpern, Partner with People Advisory Services at EY

• Gloria Chen, Chief People Officer & EVP of Employee Experience at Adobe

You can find the full list of Innovators, Enablers, and Accelerators by downloading the full report.

Who didn’t make the cut?

We are delighted to share this report to help businesses and individuals keep pace with the rapidly evolving world of remote work. However, we recognize that rapid change means more people will continue to make great strides, many of whom do not appear here.

If you are a champion of remote work or know someone who is, let us know! We are always looking for more strong voices in the remote work space.