Brett Klinker leads the global contingent workforce team at Cruise — a self-driving ride-hailing and delivery service — and is responsible for its strategy, planning and execution.

With 10 years of experience in the contingent workforce industry, Klinker never had plans to work in this space. “No one wakes up dreaming of working in the contingent workforce industry. I just fell into it after college when I read the job description and thought to myself — I could do that!” Klinker exclaims.

Klinker has worked on both the MSP and client-side of the industry and is passionate about thinking through creative ways to solve complex industry problems. For example, his program runs on an exclusivity-based model which has increased supplier engagement and allowed the company to scale quickly from 18 countries to 25 and grow the contingent workforce headcount by 200% in less than 12 months.

Klinker notes that attracting and retaining talent has been a big challenge amid the Covid-19 pandemic — but is incredibly proud to have completed every program objective his team set out to accomplish so far — including supporting the roll out of the company decision to enforce Covid-19 vaccinations for all Cruise workers. “Our program is relatively new, as it’s less than a year old but by building Covid committees and following all government protocols, we’ve been able to create a robust plan for sharing and enforcing our Covid-19 vaccination protocols in our Cruise worker community,” he says.

Moving forward, Klinker plans on supporting Cruise’s commercialization in hiring the best contingent workers to support the business growing into different cities.