The 100 Most Influential Remote Experts
- 2021 EDITION -
There’s always been a small subset of people who’ve remote worked. Many writers, for instance, worked remotely for ages.
But now, with fast internet and software that makes it easy to communicate with your workmates, along with global pandemics (gulp), there’s never been a better time to work where you are happiest.
The following experts know that remote work is the future. These are the people who are building software, communities, and resources that make it easier to communicate and perform our best work from anywhere.
David Heinemeier Hansson
David Heinemeier Hansson created Ruby on Rails and is the Founder and Chief Technical Officer at Basecamp & HEY. He is an author of many books, including the New York Times bestseller of Rework, the outside-the-box business box.
Jason Fried
Jason Fried is the Founder and CEO of Basecamp, one of the most well-known remote working programs out there. He is the Co-Author of many books, including Rework, Remote, and It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work.
Matt Mullenweg
Matt Mullenweg is the CEO of publishing and commerce company Automattic and the Co-Founder of WordPress. Alongside WordPress, which runs over 37% of websites on the Internet, Automattic is the parent company of popular brands such as Tumblr, WooCommerce, Jetpack, Longreads, and Simplenote.
Vlad Magdalin
Vlad Magdalin is the CEO and Founder of Webflow. Webflow allows people who do not have any coding experience to create a website with visually stunning design and building properties all done visually.
Pieter Levels
Digital nomad Pieter Levels did the unthinkable when he created 12 startups in 12 months. From building a program that finds music in your email to a personal goal tracker, Levels has done all of by teaching himself how to code.
Zack Onisko
Zack Onisko is the CEO of Dribble, a company based around designers coming together as a community. Before becoming the CEO Onisko was a web designer who pivoted into working in business and executive roles at Monster.com and Hired.com.
Joel Gascoigne
Joel Gascoigne, the co-founder & CEO of the social media management program, Buffer, Along with being the co-founder of one of social media's best tools, Gascoigne is an avid angel investor. Among his investments are Unsplash, Conversio, and Akkroo.
Kevin Grossman
Kevin W. Grossman is the President of Talent Board. Talent Board believes in creating a superior candidate experience. Currently, Grossman runs the prestigious Candidate Experience Awards which honors companies that are at the top of their class in Candidate Experience.
Jeff Sutherland
Jeff Sutherland is currently the Founder and Chairman at Scrum, Inc. Long ago, Sutherland was a fighter pilot before working in the banking industry. After that, he went on to be the CTO or CEO of 11 different software companies.
Kate Kendall
Kate Kendall strives to see more females in the entrepreneur landscape with her program, Atto Accelerator. As the founder of Indie Labs, CloudPeeps, The Fetch, and Freelance Friday she still finds time to be a board member for the Aussie Founders Network.
Sairee Chahal
Hailing from India, Sairee Chahal founded the company SHEROES, a social network designed for women to share advice on entrepreneurship and living. Chahal expanded SHEROES to include a remote working recruitment site called MARS by SHEROES to further empower females across the globe.
Daniel Gross
In the past, Daniel Gross founded the search engine Cue, which was later bought by Apple. Besides being an angel investor, Gross founded the app Pioneer to help creative types determine if their idea is achievable in today's market.
Andreas Klinger
Previously the CTO at Product Hunt, Andreas Klinger believes remote working is the future. After leaving Product Hunt, Klinger went on to become the Head of Remote at AngelList. Now, Klinger invests in remote work startups at Remote First Capital.
Zeb Evans
Zeb Evans says that since he was three years old, he's been an "entrepreneur at heart." Currently, he is the Founder and CEO of ClickUp, which strives to replace most of the commonly used apps on the market with just one.
Tayo Rockson
Tayo Rockson is the author of Use Your Difference To Make A Difference. He is also a consultant and speaker preaching about diversity and equality for all people no matter their differences. He believes that everyone should come together and work to make life better.
Sophie Wade
Work Futurist Sophie Wade works with businesses across the globe to help them evolve their working conditions and environments. To help spread her message, she founded Flexcel Network to run workshops on various topics designed to improve communication and collaboration.
Hiten Shah
Hiten Shah has started many software companies since he began in 2003. Currently, he is the Co-Founder of two companies: FYI and Crazy Egg. FYI helps users find their documents across any cloud-based platform. Crazy Egg helps users improve the effectiveness of their website through heat mapping.
Katherine Maher
Most people take Wikipedia for granted. Without the hard work of Katherine Maher, the CEO and Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organization that runs Wikipedia, the funding to run one of the world's largest websites would not be there.
Alex Muench
Alex Muench does Product Design at Todoist. On top of that, he works in the field of UI and UX as well as provides illustrations for books. Immensely enjoys being able to work from home.
Cheryl Cran
Cheryl Cran is a business and leadership consultant who delivers keynote speeches to companies about the future of work. Companies such as Amazon, Oracle, AT&T, and Upwork have employed her services to help understand the transition into digital work.
Tim Schumacher
Tim Schumacher started his SaaS career as the Co-Founder and CEO of Sedo.com. As the current Co-Founder and Chairman of Eyeo GmbH, the company responsible for Adblock Plus, Schumacher continues to buy small SaaS companies to help them ascend to the next level.
Chris Herd
Chris Herd calls himself a "remote work activist" for good measure. His career has predicated on helping make remote work the rule and not the exception. As the Founder and CEO of Firstbase, Herd's company helps remote workers with every aspect of working remotely.
Nora Dunn
Nora Dunn calls herself "The Professional Hobo" as she worked while traveling abroad for over 12 years. Not only does Dunn write about her exploits about traveling abroad, but she writes and speaks about personal finance along the way.
Amir Salihefendic
Amir Salihefendić prides himself on answering the hard questions that people want. At Doist, a productivity and communication app developer, Salihefendić is the Founder and CEO solving the challenging problems facing the remote work community across the world.
Jeremy Scrivens
Jeremy Scrivens does not look into the past, but the future. As a Futurist and Director of The Emotional Economy at Work, he analyzes the future of work, allowing him to deliver strategies that help businesses learn how to prepare for the future.
Julien Codorniou
Julien Codorniou has played a major role at Facebook for nearly 10 years. As the current Vice President of Workplace from Facebook, the list of companies he's worked in partner with include Walmart, Chevron, Spotify, and many more.
Sid Sijbrandij
Sid Sijbrandij is the Co-Founder and CEO of GitLab. GitLab prides itself on allowing users to be able to work remotely. The product's tools allow teams to collaborate while not sacrificing speed or security at the same time.
Steli Efti
Steli Efti, as the CEO of Close, believes in shaping how sales communication will be done in the future. Close's CRM tool was the first one to include built-in calling and hopes to ultimately eradicate manual processes.
Darren Murph
Darren Murph works for GitLab as the Head of Remote. GitLab's mission is to empower remote workers. You may also know Murph as being the Guinness Book of World Record holder as the planet's most prolific professional blogger.
Wade Foster
As the Co-Founder and CEO of Zapier, Wade Foster wants to make our life easier by having apps like Evernote, Trello, Basecamp, and Wufoo talk to each other as well as with other companies. Zapier even allows CRMs to talk to other programs.
Rodolphe Dutel
Rodolphe Dutel founded Remotive.io in 2014 as a site that makes it easier for people into the tech industry to work remotely. Starting with nothing, his site grew to connect over 25,000 industry professionals, which continues to expand daily.
Kieran Flanagan
As the Vice President of Marketing and Growth, Kieran Flanagan took the CRM company HubSpot to new heights. While overseeing over 60 marketers at the company, he developed a freemium business model that doubled the site's traffic in under a year and a half.
Courtney Seiter
Courtney Seiter worked her way up the ranks at Buffer to become the Director of People, before moving on to become VP of People at Hologram. She is an advocate for the advancement of the workplace, including her work as a proponent of remote work and diversity.
Steph Smith
If you've read The Hustle daily newsletter or are a member of the Trends website, then you know Steph Smith's work well. She is the Head of Trends and the Product Manager at The Hustle where she voices her opinion on current tech news.
Dame Steve Shirley CH
Dame Steve Shirley CH is a data innovation pioneer, businesswoman, and humanitarian. In the 1950s, Dame Shirley built computers by hand, founding the company Freelance Programmers. Later in life, she became a philanthropist, donating nearly all of her money to charity.
Lisette Sutherland
Lisette Sutherland loves remote working. She is the author of the book Work Together Anywhere: A Handbook on Working Remotely—Successfully—for Individuals, Teams, and Managers, which helps anyone working from home no matter their skill level.
George Siosi Samuels
George Siosi Samuels is the Managing Director of Faiā. As a Bitcoin advocate, his company is powered by the cryptocurrency, which dedicates itself to create brand communities and incorporate new tools and technology to help high-growth ventures improve productivity.
Job van der Voort
Job van der Voort runs the well-known podcast, Remote Work Podcast. Previously, he was the VP of Product for GitLab. As someone who enjoys and believes in remote working, he currently is the CEO of Remote.
Kathryn Tyler
Kathryn Tyler hosts the Digital Mums Work That Works podcast. A promoter of mothers having the ability to have a flexible career, she is the Co-Founder and CEO of Digital Mums, which provides programs for mothers to learn new digital skills.
Hailley Griffis
The Head of Public Relations, Hailley Griffis, has the innate ability to help people with their careers. She is passionate about goal setting and developing career goals. Her work has been on Fast Company, Time Magazine, Entrepreneur, and The Huffington Post.
Stella Garber
Stella Garber is the Head of Marketing for lead marketing platform Trello. She more than doubled Trello's user count with innovative marketing tactics. She also writes "Remotely Managing," the successful article series on Medium about remote working.
Jim Kalbach
Jim Kalbach is the Head of Customer Experience for MURAL. He excels in providing customers with superior support. He does not hide in the shadows as he is more than welcome discussing his customer service talents in online events and online webinars.
Marie Prokopets
At company FYI, Marie Prokopets is the Co-Founder and COO. As a serial entrepreneur, she has founded many companies in the field of product development. At FYI, she helped create software that will locate your documents within three clicks across a multitude of cloud-based services.
Sara Sutton
Sara Sutton founded FlexJobs and currently holds the position of CEO. As someone who continues to look at how the future of work will change, she supports the remote work movement. She understands that working as we know it will continue to change.
Mike Hostetler
Mike Hostetler is a master teambuilder specializing in creating software solutions for high-tech problems. As the Vice President of Enterprise Technology & Operations at Cars.com, he formed a team of remote working, highly-trained individuals who created an excellent customer experience.
Katie Womersley
Katie Womersley, the Vice President of Engineering at Buffer, strives for perfection in making a first-class product. As a lover of remote work, she wrote articles on the topic across major websites including, The Next Web, Fast Company, and Inc Magazine.
Justin Champion
Justin Champion is a digital nomad, enjoying remote work to the fullest. Currently, he works from his truck and camper for HubSpot Academy as their Principal Academy Growth Strategist. He also has a passion for writing books with his book on content marketing.
Milena Berry
Milena Berry is the CEO and Founder of PowerToFly. This website focuses on building a community for women to be able to network, gain connections, and find a new job. Creating a better workplace for women is something Berry is very passionate about.
Dominic Price
Remote leadership is a key thought point for Dom Price. As the Work Futurist for Atlassian, he spends his time understanding the needs of customers and pushing the boundaries of what can be done. Solving the hard issues is his forte.
Greg Caplan
Greg Caplan currently is the Intern CMO at the celebrity shout-out site Cameo. He is the Founder of Remote Year, a gathering place for working professionals to work and learn remotely in locales across the globe.
Guillaume De Smedt
Guillaume De Smedt is a master of creating communities. Currently, he is the Vice President of Global Community, Startup Grind, the world's largest startup community. He is also the Chairman of The Silicon Cape who's goal is to support the technology startup community in Cape Town & the Western Cape.
Wiktor Schmidt
As the Executive Chairman at Netguru, Wiktor Schmidt consults with web developers, mobile developers, product designers, and machine learning experts across Europe. His goal is to innovate and create digital products never seen before.
Omar Zenhom
Omar Zenhom does a little bit of everything. He is the Founder of WebinarNinja, a widely-known all-in-one webinar software. Also, he hosts The $100 MBA Show podcast where he and his co-host, Nicole Baldinu, provide advice on how to build a business.
Lalit Mangal
It is no surprise that Lalit Mangal is a big supporter of Remote Work. He Co-Founded Airmeet.com to provide a place for people to run virtual events, conferences, and workshops. In the past, he Co-Founded the Indian home portal, CommonFloor.com.
Nathan Hirsch
Amazon bestseller Nathan Hirsch is known in outsourcing circles for good reason. As the Founder of Outsource School, his program has helped lots of people find digital virtual assistants. He understands the ins and out of running virtual teams as well.
Brenna Loury
Brenna Loury, as the Head of Marketing at Doist, helps her company spread its message of remote working with a conscience. Her passion for helping her community spreads into volunteering as she regularly volunteers for Make-A-Wish Alaska & Washington.
Tim Herbig
Tim Herbig wants product managers to succeed. He does so by being a Product Management Coach and Consultant who understands that people are human. He helps teams, even if they're remote working, to stay together and be strong.
Darcy Peters
As a Marine and proud mom, Darcy Peters uses her skills to help customers. She wants them to have the best experience ever. That is why she is great at her role at Buffer as the Customer Advocacy Lead.
Brie Weiler Reynolds
Brie Weiler Reynolds provides jobseekers with flexible and remote work opportunities as a career coach and Career Development Manager at FlexJobs. Whether its parents looking for flexibility in their work schedule or people who want a side job they can do from home, Reynolds is your go-to.
Laurel Farrer
As the CEO and Founder of Distribute Consulting, Laurel Farrer provides help for companies that are working remotely. She helps them overcome issues with communication and helps them create digital practices that will ensure their company will succeed.
Stefan Palios
As a freelance writer on remote work and freelancing, Stefan Palios knows that there's more to life than working in a cubicle. He helps show freelancers and remote workers what are the best practices from working on the go and how to create a healthy work-life balance that can be hard for some people.
Marieke van de Rakt
Running a high-ranking website requires optimal SEO. Marieke van de Rakt, the CEO at Yoast, knows that better than anyone. Her company specializes in helping website optimize their SEO for higher search results and better customer experience.
Peldi Guilizzoni
Peldi Guilizzoni, Founder and CEO of Balsamiq, felt that poor software prevented a lot of companies from expanding. That is why he founded his company. With his company, it allows web developers, business owners, and anyone needing a nice-looking user interface to succeed.
Tammy Bjelland
Tammy Bjelland understands that remote work is not going anywhere. She educates and speaks to the non-remote and remote working communities on remote work and its benefits. It's also why is the Founder & CEO of remote work company Workplaceless.
Pilar Orti
For most companies and employees, remote working is still a new phenomenon. That is why remote work trainer Pilar Orti helps train people on what remote working is and how to overcome any hurdles that it can throw your way.
Ted Goas
Ted Goas believes that product design should be simple. If it's not, customers will not approve. As the Senior Product Designer at Dialpad, Goas' design is simple and clean. You won't see any annoying banners or flashing ads here.
Wayne Turmel
Remote working has its own unique challenges, much different than working in an office. Writer Wayne Turmel knows that. As the Co-Founder at the Remote Leadership Institute, he helps provide information that will help businesses overcome remote work problems.
Matthew Mottola
Saying Matthew R Mottola likes freelancers is like saying water is wet. He believes that freelancing is not a fad, but the wave of the future. To further push freelancing to the forefront of work, he Co-Founded Venture L, where is currently the CEO.
Lisa Taylor
The future of work can be seen through the crystal ball Lisa Taylor holds in her hands. As the author of The Talent Revolution: Longevity and the Future of Work, she sees what the future of work will become.
Melissa Ng
Melissa Ng wants great design to be seen everywhere. She is the Founder of the design firm Melewi where she currently is an Advisor. Companies such as McDonald's, Visa, and Samsung have used Melewi's innovative design to grow their businesses.
Laïla von Alvensleben
Laïla von Alvensleben believes remote work and creating great user interfaces and experiences can go hand and hand. As the Head of Culture & Collaboration at MURAL, she and her team help create ideas visually.
Paul Estes
Paul Estes is the Editor in Chief at Staffing.com where he promotes freelancing and remote work. As a best-selling author and podcast host, he is very knowledgable on how companies deal with remote and freelance employees.
Iwo Szapar
Iwo Szapar is the Co-Founder of Remote-how where he advocates for remote working. At his company, he hosts initiatives such as Remote-how Academy and Virtual Coworking to foster the idea that employees can choose when and they work.
Anna Auerbach
Anna Auerbach is a member of Egon Zehnder’s Tech & Digital practices, she specializes in working with Chief Product Officers. Previously, she created the startup Werk that was an early adopter of SaaS analytics for HR purposes.
Lisa Wehden
Lisa Wehden is an investor in Bloomberg Beta. She specializes in machine intelligence to create a better work environment. In the past, she was the Head of Special Projects for Entrepreneur First where he helped invest in AI and machine learning companies.
Leah Knobler
Leah Knobler is the Director of Talent Acquisition at remote-work friendly company Help Scout. She looks to hire talent that can help build her remote-working company captivate and draw in customers in a unique way.
Molood Ceccarelli
Molood Ceccarelli is the Agile Coach, CEO, and Founder of Remote Forever. The company built itself to be the largest online conference on remote work. In 2018, the conference grew to host over 4,000 attendees
Hassan Osman
Hassan Osman finds time to not only work for Cisco as Director but to write a large selection of books. His books help managers manage their business, help them become compassionate, and to navigate the world of remote work.
Liam Martin
It's not easy for a company to convert to remote work. Liam Martin helps them to convert to remote working and to do so at scale. He is the Co-Founder of Staff.com that helps businesses acquire remote work talent.
John Riordan
Director of Support for Shopify, John Riordan, knows that his company has helped lots of people across the world work remotely. And now, he helps teach other businesses that working in an office is a thing of the past.
Marcelo Lebre
Marcelo Lebre is Co-Founder and CTO of Remote. His company helps businesses get ready for the future by offering payroll, benefits, tax, and compliance options for companies of any size. He is an avid supporter of entrepreneurs.
Najeeb Khan
Najeeb Khan worked remotely for years before deciding he wanted to help others be able to do so. As the Head of People & Remote at Council.Club, he brings remote workers together to build a stronger community.
Brian Rhea
Brian Rhea knows that having a strong, empathetic workforce is a must for remote working companies to thrive. That is why he founded Headlamp to do just that. On top of running his company, he hosts a successful SaaS podcast about entrepreneurs in the field.
Stephan Dohrn
Stephan Dohrn knows that working as we did in the 20th century is long gone. His company Radical Inclusion is a consulting firm that helps businesses deal with the changeover to 21st century working like remote work so they can adapt with ease.
Ashley Mcalpin
Ashley McAlpin is the Director of Marketing at FormAssembly Inc. During her decade in marketing, she's worked in both traditional and digital marketing. Her goal is always to develop a strategy to have her products delivered in an upgradeable way.
Bobbie Racette
As the CEO and Founder at The Virtual Gurus, Bobbie Racette's company uses algorithms to find the best virtual assistants for their clients. She is a recent winner of Canada’s Indigenous Entrepreneur of the Year and Woman Entrepreneur of the Year, Prairies Region by Startup Canada.
Tricia Sciortino
Tricia Sciortino is the Chief Executive Officer of Belay, a staffing agency. Unlike the typical staffing agency, Belay specializes in finding high-quality remote workers who are social media strategists, virtual assistants, bookkeepers, and anyone else who can make help a business expand.
Cathy Atkins
Cathy Atkins is a PR and marketing mastermind. Her skills in marketing and communications in the B2B space help her clients stand above the rest. She's been awarded multiple times in the fields of social media and digital PR.
Allyn Bailey
Allyn Bailey is the Talent Acquisition Transformation Manager for Intel. She believes in helping her company by building a reliable relationship between employees and management. She also has worked as a consultant in developing customer experiences.
Tara Vasdani
As the Principal Lawyer for Remote Canada, Tara Vasdani helps tech companies with any legal issues that arise. Issues such as compliance and hiring are especially important to her as she's appeared on the popular podcast Remote Work to discuss these topics.
Dmitri Leonov
Dmitri Leonov is the Co-Founder of Taopatch USA. His company created a patch designed to help in the fight against Multiple Sclerosis, athletic injuries, and people suffering chronic pain by using accu-pressure much like acupuncture.
Dylan Serota
Being the CoFounder and Chief Strategy Officer at Terminal gives Dylan Serota the ability to promote remote work. His company links high-level engineers with companies that would be a perfect suit for their services.
Kate Smith
Katelyn Smith runs the popular travel blog The Remote Nomad proving that no matter what you want to do on the Internet can be done from anywhere. She also is a remote career coach, and her expertise has been on BBC and CNN.
Sandra Lewis
The Founder and CEO of Boldly Subscription Staffing, Sandra Lewis, helps businesses find the right employee for the job. Her company's premium service helps businesses make sure that they will only find highly-qualified applicants, saving them time.
Mads Singers
We've all had that one boss who was overbearing. Mads Singers coaches entrepreneurs and managers to effectively manage employees so there's no issue with that. With employees who feel like they've been taken care of, they'll work better after all.
June Bolneo
June Bolneo founded WorkRemote to not only help remote work talent find the work. She also designed the company to handle training and managing remote work teams. No longer would a business or employee feel like they're left to fend for themselves.
Trina Hoefling
There's not many companies run by a professor. Trina Hoefling is not only the Co-Founder of The SMART Workplace, but she's also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern California - Bovard College. Her expertise in dealing with remote work teams provides her great insight into the modern workplace.
Ho Yin Cheung
Ho Yin Cheung wanted to make remote work more collaborative and social. That's why he founded Remo. As an online office, the company provides a place for remote work-friendly companies to be able to share ideas and information more socially.
Meaghan Williams
Meaghan Williams loves learning. It's why she enjoys helping students find the right career as a Graduate Assistant Career Counselor at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. She runs events, workshops, and conducts one-on-one appointments with students, finding them the right career path for them.
Become more productive working where you are happiest
Subscribe for exclusive interviews covering how companies and employees can be more productive working remotely: