Human Cloud Advisory
Most firms leave you a playbook.
We leave you with your future workforce.
Consider it forward-deployed talent transformation. We combine $1B+ of flexible-talent success into an advisory engagement that results in your Human Cloud.
“Human Cloud possesses a rare ability to combine flexible talent expertise, with startup speed & creativity, all while understanding the unique needs of the enterprise.”
Two Clicks To Talent
What if your organization could experience two clicks to talent?With Human Cloud, you can.
Human Cloud embeds thousands of talent solutions under one roof — a compliant roof. Through the advisory layer we go function by function, rebuilding your talent stack on top of it.
“With the power of the Human Cloud you can create, innovate, and invent whole new products and markets for your ideas.”
Daniel H. Pink#1 New York Times bestselling author of Drive, When and Free Agent NationHow it works
We Advise. Build. Then hand you the keys.
Three phases, and the third is the one nobody else offers — because nobody else has the technology to hand over at the end of it.
The executive layer
We start where a strategy firm starts — and then keep going. Matthew and Tony work directly with your leadership to map the workforce you actually have, decide function by function what to keep, augment or automate, and build the business case your CFO will sign.
35+ years of flexible talent experience.
The technology layer
The strategy gets stood up on Human Cloud, not stapled into a binder. We configure your sourcing, run your first RFPs against a vetted market, build your shortlists, and get real work moving with real solutions while your team watches how it is done.
Aggregate 1k+ solutions under one roof.
The agentic talent layer
Then we hand over the keys. Your vetted network, your sourcing process, your benchmarks and the agents that run them all sit in your Human Cloud account — owned and controlled by your team, operating whether or not we are still engaged.
The end state is your independence, not our retainer.
The leadership team
From Industrial to Pharmaceuticals, there isn't an industry we haven't helped.
Matthew Mottola
Co-Founder & CEO, Human Cloud
Leads working team adoptionBuilt Microsoft’s signature freelance product, founded and exited a venture-backed workforce SaaS company, and wrote the book that named the category.
- Author, The Human Cloud — HarperCollins
- Built Microsoft’s first freelance talent product
- Founder, Venture L (venture-backed, exited)
Tony Buffum
Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer, Human Cloud
Leads executive strategyTwenty years as an HR leader inside public companies, then head of HR client strategy at the largest freelance marketplace in the world. He has sat in the chair your CHRO is sitting in.
- Former CHRO, FLIR Systems (public company)
- Former VP, HR — Stanley Black & Decker
- Former VP, HR Client Strategy — Upwork
Organizations we’ve helped
Published by HarperCollins
The advice is not improvised — it is the book.
The Human Cloud laid out how work gets unbundled and who wins when it does. Advisory is that thesis applied to your organization, by the person who wrote it.
What you keep
When the engagement ends, the machine stays.
This is the part a strategy firm structurally cannot offer. Because we are also the technology, the advisory does not end in a document — it ends in an operating talent layer that belongs to you.
Your own vetted talent network
The people we source and vet land in your account — profiles, history and relationships intact. Not held behind an agency, not re-brokered on the way back to you.
A running sourcing and RFP machine
Your team leaves able to scope a need, run an RFP against a vetted market, compare real proposals and select — without Human Cloud in the loop.
Agents that run workforce ops
Sourcing, inbound and follow-up handled by agents inside your workspace. The operating system keeps working between engagements, not just the strategy deck.
The data and benchmarks
HC Scores, market rates, business cases and scorecards accumulated during the engagement stay yours — the evidence base for every decision after ours.
In their words
Human Cloud saved us months of trial and error by helping us understand how to structure our program, manage change, increase adoption, and better understand risks.
Preston Mossman
Product Lead, Generative AI & Talent Marketplaces
Human Cloud possesses a rare ability to combine flexible talent expertise, with startup speed & creativity, all while understanding the unique needs of the enterprise.
Liane Scult
Microsoft’s First Ever Freelance PM
Human Cloud helps us future proof for however the next decade plus could turn out. The rapidly changing work landscape has been a source of fear for me. It’s tough to know what to prepare for when I don’t know what’s coming. I also made the book a required reading for my team so we can put together a game plan and make sure we thrive in this ever changing game we call work.
Joseph Robbins
COO, Public Grid
Human Cloud provides us with a clear vision of a new workplace, where the gig economy becomes mainstream, almost everybody works alongside a smart machine, and everything is in the cloud.
Thomas H. Davenport
Fellow, MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy
Human Cloud transformed the way we approach hiring. As a nationwide coffee company in the US, they showed us a better way to manage growth by pairing us with talent from all around the world. For example, an animation freelancer transformed our branding and communications with their stellar work.
Alex Sachs
Head of Operations, Puroast Coffee
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We take on a limited number of engagements at a time, because the executives delivering them are the ones you met on this page. Send us the situation and we'll come back with an honest read on fit — including when the answer is that you don't need us.
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