2016 Game Changer: Asher (AJ) Brustein

The gig economy found a winner with Wonolo, an on-demand staffing platform. Finding freelance work with little notice is a challenge even large companies face, and Asher (AJ) Brustein rose to solve it.

In his previous role as a brand manager at Coca-Cola Co., he and his Wonolo co-founder spoke with people throughout the business to understand their pain points. Because talent wasn’t always working at the right times, the company lost more than $1 billion a year in estimated missed revenue, said David Butler, Coca-Cola’s vice president of innovation and entrepreneurship.

Brustein “identified a problem, gained consensus from other workers to define a need and created a solution that solves the unpredictability of demand and staffing in business,” Butler added. This tech solution, called Wonolo, launched in 2013, and the 35-year-old’s company has already placed about 15,000 workers with 50,000 on-demand roles. The company boasts a 40 percent cost savings over traditional temp staffing and an average fill rate of 90 percent.

For more on the 2016 Workforce Game Changers, visit workforce.com/GC2016.

Lauren Dixon is a Workforce associate editor. Comment below or email editors@workforce.com. Follow Workforce on Twitter at @workforcenews.