52 Business View - February 2016
Launched a mere 13 years ago, LinkedIn has quickly
become the world’s pre-eminent, professional net-
work. The company has more than 400 million reg-
istered members in more than 200 countries and
territories, and is available in 24 languages. LinkedIn
is headquartered in Mountain View, California, with
offices in 30 cities and 7,600 full-time employees.
It traded its first shares on the New York Stock Ex-
change in 2011.
For the vast majority of its professional users,
LinkedIn serves as an essential tool for connecting
with others in a variety of ways: people use it to
find jobs, employers search for candidates, intro-
ductions amongst members get made, people can
endorse one another’s skills, etc. But according to
Kelly Kyer, LinkedIn’s Global Tech Marketing Lead,
“most people think of LinkedIn as a finite bucket –
‘that’s where I go to post my professional profile,’
but there are so many more tools on LinkedIn that
individuals and companies can take advantage of.
They can tell their professional stories so they can
attract opportunities and be more successful. They
can also get the news they need within their sectors
in order to learn and grow professionally.”
This pioneering company is constantly adding differ-
ent products and services to its platform to expand
the ways users can reach out and connect with one
another. For example, LinkedIn also supports the
formation of interest groups. Most of the groups are
employment-related, although a very wide range of
topics are covered, mainly around professional and
career issues. Currently, there are about one and
a quarter million interest groups, half of which are
comprised of academic or corporate alumni. An-
