An English businessman with a global outlook believes his new way of working will start a trend due to the current coronavirus outbreak.
Julian Stubbs, is originally from Cheltenham, but now lives in Stockholm, Sweden, where he founded UP THERE, EVERYWHERE, a company with no employees, but with members from Shanghai to San Francisco.
All members are UP in the Cloud and link-up on projects spanning the globe.
Instead of offices, UP invests in creative spaces where there’s no compulsion to attend – as long as you are online, you are available. UP seeks out creative partners wherever they may be located. Current locations include Stockholm, Amsterdam, Hamburg, London, New York, and San Francisco and here in England, the UP partners are based at Keele, Staffordshire.
“It is about working smarter and it really does not matter where you are based as an individual,” said Julian. “I am from Cheltenham originally, but now I live in Sweden and have recently worked on large Place Branding projects for cities including Stockholm, Basle and Liverpool. We are currently working on a place branding research assignment with Cheshire & Warrington. Up in the Cloud, there are no borders around countries or the workplace.
“We are now seeing other companies embracing our working model more and more and when we have pandemics, such as COVID-19, that will accentuate the pace of change.”
“In England, we have creative co-working spaces in London and Guildford, and plan to develop more, people come in when they need to interact face-to-face and then carry on those conversations in the Cloud. When we founded UP, we wanted to work flexibly and at times and in places where it suited us best. We saw work as project based and that means it is about bringing in the right people to fulfill each project. UP has grown from this concept and at any given time, we may have a graphic designer in England working with a programmer in Amsterdam and a marketing expert in Washington DC. There’s an added bonus as when we go home in Stockholm, a partner may well be working on the same project in a different time zone.
“There’s no employees, not even any freelancers, we are all UP members, a thriving community of like-minded creative professionals. We see our model as the best fit for the 21st Century, no-one is sitting in an office marking time, or commuting an hour each way to add to our climate woes, and if you are a night owl, you can enjoy a few hours of daylight and settle down to work twilight hours.”
This revolutionary work strategy has paid off, UP’s income rose from 28 million Swedish Krona in 2017, or about £2 million GBP, to 68 million Swedish Krona in 2019, or about £6 million GBP.
The UP creative space for London is in White City, and there are now over 200 UP members globally.
ENDS
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