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Colin McDonagh, Head of Enterprise Workforce Strategy at Worksome

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Leaders,

It’s no secret that Enterprise adoption is tough. Specifically, enabling large companies to scale their freelance spend similar to how external talent is already over 50% of talent within most companies. It’s also getting increasingly blurred with the existing external talent ecosystem. Leaders face tough questions, such as, should external talent programs be different from freelance talent programs? Should talent platforms integrate with VMS and MSP suppliers? Is freelance competitive, or complementary to the contingent talent space?

Today we have Colin McDonagh, is a 10+ year veteran in helping large companies scale external talent programs. He is our go-to when it comes to the evolution of external talent, and how freelance is the same, or different from the existing external talent ecosystem. Colin recently joined Worksome as their Head of Enterprise Workforce Strategy.

Colin has extensive experience with successful contingent talent brands. He has served as Global Program Manager for contractor programs at Meta, formerly Facebook, Director at Allegis, helping clients such as Microsoft, and as an advisor at Utmost, which was acquired by Beeline in 2022. He’s also been an early champion of innovative solutions like direct sourcing.

Key takeaways:

1: Where does freelance sit within the greater external talent ecosystem?

2: What’s the difference between freelance and gig, freelance and contingent, and can freelance work within the confines of contingent talent?

3: Why aren’t we as far along as we thought we’d be 10 years ago?

4: Why aren’t there internal freelance roles when companies are spending over $2 trillion dollars globally on freelancers?

Chapters

00:00 – Introduction and Overview

11:33 – Colin’s Background and Experience

26:10 – Identifying the Players in the Freelance Landscape

30:16 – The Role of Platforms in the Freelance Industry

42:12 – Colin’s Most Proud Project and the Benefits of Working on a Platform

Follow Up Material & Links

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Colin McDonagh, Head of Enterprise Workforce Strategy at Worksome, Scaling Enterprise Freelance Adoption Through Embedded Compliance