NEW YORK, July 23, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Luxury Institute today announced the rapid scale-up of its dynamic Global Luxury Expert Network (GLEN). The GLEN is the Institute’s current global community of hundreds of elite senior luxury and premium goods and services experts who conduct value-added consulting projects for small, medium and large luxury and premium brands across dozens of categories. Over the last 16 years, the Luxury Institute has always engaged in elite expert crowdsourcing for special clients, while assembling a database of over 12,000 senior luxury and premium brand executive relationships, making it today’s largest network for recruiting trusted luxury experts in the world. The need for on-demand expert talent in luxury is growing exponentially as the industry undergoes massive disruption and transformation.

In sharp contrast to “rent-a-freelancer” platforms, which today are a commodity in the gig economy, GLEN is a breakthrough consulting model that delivers real-time, on-demand senior expert talent for clients of all sizes at a fraction of the cost of traditional consulting firms. It is a complete disruption of the consulting firm model in that it rapidly deploys top-tier operational experts with 3-5X the expertise, with real-time results, at competitive rates, anywhere in the world. All projects are assigned a team leader and an expert project manager to ensure deliverables and timetables are met.

All GLEN members are highly vetted high-level executives with leading edge operating experience and proven high-performance track records at top-tier brands. Luxury experts who choose to join GLEN are senior independent consultants, successful entrepreneurs, executives between jobs, and executives working at top-tier brands who choose to assist other, non-competitive luxury brands with zero conflict of interest. In fact, GLEN members who currently work for luxury brands benefit from building deep relationships that lead to collaborative opportunities for their existing brands, and their own careers. Totally unique to the consulting industry, all GLEN experts are vetted for their high emotional intelligence skills. Thus, they are able to engage and collaborate on client projects instantly with deep empathy, trustworthiness and generosity. And, because they are affluent, GLEN experts provide their business expertise with the added unique perspective of the target luxury consumer.

Examples of recent GLEN projects include:

  • A luxury expert team comprised of 16 C-Level executives, from 12 different luxury goods and services categories, participated in a project to assist a large U.S. hotel company and its overseas partner to generate and develop the business plan for a new luxury hospitality brand.
  • Two teams, one comprised of 10 wealthy consumers and another comprised of 6 C-Level luxury experts from 6 different luxury categories, assisted a multi-billion dollar Silicon Valley firm in developing the product attributes, benefits and features, and full commercial launch plan for a breakthrough new technology.
  • A team of especially selected senior luxury experts, who previously worked for The Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons, Nordstrom, and Chanel, assisted in designing the omni-channel customer experience for a luxury automotive brand.
  • A group of luxury executives and entrepreneurs, led by Milton Pedraza, rigorously vetted and invested in an innovative new start-up involved in the luxury shared-access model. Since then, the start-up has received investment from some of the world’s top venture investors, many top-tier brands have joined the network, and the start-up has already received acquisition offers. 
  • A small team of luxury experts recently worked in the luxury home appliances category to deliver competitive analysis and brand positioning recommendations overnight for a multi-billion dollar client for a presentation to its CEO the next day.
  • A team of objective CRM experts virtually analyzed the business needs and existing technology of a European luxury retailer and recommended the right CRM system and implementation steps, within a few short weeks. 

Corporate functions that GLEN serves:

  • Product Innovation and Development
  • Market Intelligence and Research
  • Customer Experience
  • Business Metrics and KPIs
  • Marketing
  • Advertising
  • Social Media
  • Brand Influencers
  • CRM and other Client Support Systems
  • Sales and Business Development
  • Channel Management
  • Corporate Training
  • Human Resources
  • Organizational Transformation
  • Technology Vendor Assessment
  • Start-Ups, Acquisitions and Divestitures

To submit a project to GLEN, clients simply complete an online contact form, or provide information via a meeting or phone call, including general notes on the project objectives and deliverables. Further details will be requested by Luxury Institute after the signing of a mutual non-disclosure agreement. Luxury Institute will submit a proposal to the client with a recommended list of experts from GLEN, usually within three business days (depending on the project scope).

“In order to build and sustain market relevance in this complex world, luxury brands need to extend their organizational capabilities with an open-system mindset that leverages networks of highly skilled external expertise in real time,” said Milton Pedraza, CEO of the Luxury Institute. “It has been said that no one organization has all the best talent working within it. GLEN deeply extends your expertise and operational agility seamlessly and cost effectively. It is an adaptation of the real-time, on-demand, shared-access model, with the exception that GLEN delivers only top-tier, emotionally intelligent expert talent, at a fraction of the cost of top-tier consulting firms. The deep, lasting human relationships that are forged in working collaboratively with GLEN as an expert member, or client, are a priceless added benefit. Today, the power to thrive is in the expert network.”

For more information, to join GLEN as an expert, or submit a project please contact Milton Pedraza, CEO: mpedraza@luxuryinstitute.com or Katherine Sousa, Senior Consultant: ksousa@luxuryinstitute.com.