Interview with Vincent Huguet (EDHEC Master 1998), co-founder and joint CEO of Malt

When he co-founded Malt in France in 2013, it was only natural for Vincent Huguet (EDHEC Grande École 1998) to become CEO. Ten years and five more countries later (Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, United Kingdom and Germany), the online platform for connecting freelancers and businesses has established itself as a market leader and enabled many employees to take the plunge into self-employment in tech and support roles. An active community of 450,000 “Malters” in Europe, a successful fundraising campaign of €200 million and its position as a barometer of societal trends are some of the astonishing successes enjoyed by Huguet, who for a few months now has been joint CEO.

How would you summarize your current position and responsibilities?

My title of CEO has not changed since 2013, but my role has changed considerably! Initially I did a bit of everything, but now, with a staff of 600 across several European countries, I mainly think about how to structure Malt over the years to come. In the first half of 2022, I spent 50% of my time conducting job interviews, seeking information and opportunities. Once you’ve found the right people, you then need to have the right structure for your size, find the right mix in-house to delve into issues in detail but without cutting into the time available for strategic projects. So on the one hand you have innovation and on the other a process of reflection to prepare for the future, constantly navigating between these two aspects. 

Would you say Malt is a “feel-good community”?

I like that expression! In fact our official name is Malt Community. We have a Chief Community Officer, which is quite rare for an organization like ours. When we started out, there were already online platforms putting freelancers in contact with one another, but the way they operated and their business model and user experience actually put freelancers in competition. It was supposedly for the benefit of clients, but those platforms found themselves with a business model involving freelancers willing to charge very low rates – so mainly located in Asia – and very small businesses in the United States and Europe. At Malt, we are interested more in high-end freelancers, who don’t need to fight for every job, and medium to large-sized firms, who will of course consider rates but are mainly concerned about service quality. Airbnb reinvented the marketplace codes by creating a community – mainly made up of hosts – with events, and that’s what we’ve been doing since we began. Our starting premise was the community and the needs of freelancers – to find quality clients, be paid quickly and not feel alone – and that way demand would come naturally, as in any market shortage where the supply exists. That was what immediately made us stand out, and it is an aspect we really emphasize. 

Has Malt developed in a way that changes the way people see freelancing? 

Yes, absolutely, and we’re quite proud of that, although it’s hard to know precisely what impact we’ve had on society. When we started out, there were slightly fewer than 600,000 freelancers across all professions on the French market. Now there are closer to a million. We opened up information, made rates visible to the public and right away introduced barometers by category or by city, and since 2020 we’ve been conducting a benchmark study entitled Freelancing in Europe for the media and public authorities, in collaboration with Boston Consulting Group. Malt has never positioned itself as a union for freelancers. But we did set ourselves the objective of demonstrating that freelancers represent a large segment of the population – in ever-increasing numbers –, that this is a status they have chosen and that they can also encounter difficulties like accessing lending. Simply offering transparency and structure enticed a lot of people to follow the movement. Employees set up profiles, took on small jobs, saw that it worked and calculated how much they could invoice, and then realized they wouldn’t have any problem finding work or being paid on time by key clients. They then developed their reputation on Malt and were eventually able to increase their rates. These are fantastic stories and we are eager to tell them.

Would you say there is an increasing desire among workers to develop their skill sets rather than rise through the ranks of a firm? 

Absolutely. Indeed, this is something firms need to work on. In the tech industry, Silicon Valley has understood this for quite some time now. In France, the “royal” career path is still to become a manager once you’ve proven yourself worthy in a profession. But being a manager is a very different thing to being a good individual contributor. Many people don’t necessarily want to become managers but instead continue to be experts in a particular field. An increasing number refuse to follow codes they don’t identify with and which in some cases unfortunately result in them experiencing burnout. They choose freelancing because working for a company doesn’t make sense to them. You hear a lot about “bullshit jobs”, but I think you can stay in a profession and engage in it with more “craftsmanship”. A freelancer works closely with what is tangible and can also be transparent and have an exclusive relationship with their clients. At Malt, we want them to have the freedom to organize their time as they see fit and return to the very principles that drew them to their profession in the first place.

How is the cohabitation between freelancers and employees developing in firms? 

We’re hearing a lot about “hybrid” work in terms of location – working from home or in the office – but the notion of hybrid also relates to the status of staff. Initially, Malt essentially worked with start-ups. Then big companies came along who were already working with freelancers through various intermediaries like consultancy firms. Since Covid, the big firms listed on the CAC40 have realized they need to think about work differently, trust their employees and embrace tele-working. They are also increasingly aware that freelancing is a huge phenomenon and that they no longer have any choice. In Europe nowadays, around one-third of those working in IT are freelancers. For the last two years, businesses have been contacting us unsolicited with calls for tenders or looking for a platform like ours to recruit or handle invoicing and contractualization. 

Would you say the cohabitation between employees and freelancers in the workplace can instil company-wide changes?

Yes, it’s contagious, which is why some employees want to become freelancers! Nonetheless, I don’t think everyone is about to go freelance, it’s just not for everybody. There’s a certain comfort that comes with being an employee, and above all it’s a necessity. We need both: on the one hand people who contribute their expertise at a particular time and provide fresh impetus, and on the other people who focus solely on one job, with intimate knowledge of a brand, committed in the long term. Both parties have a mutual interest in this scenario. Management also appreciate the huge input of knowledge over a period of a few months that this cross-pollination brings: freelancers buzz from job to job and benefit from the experience they gain in start-ups, with many different tools to contribute. Some freelancers even end up joining a company when it’s a perfect match. 

The digital transformation in business is above all a cultural shift. A good approach is to have hundreds of freelancers dispatched to many different small teams, who change the organization from the bottom up. Clients seek out freelancers for their hard skills but often walk away with soft skills.

Does Malt’s international dimension encourage international recruitment? 

Because our positioning targets high-end freelancers, the companies we work with mostly hire local freelancers with both geographical and cultural proximity. However, in professions where there is a shortage of talent, we are increasingly seeing foreign companies recruiting freelancers in France. A business based in Geneva will be first and foremost interested in who the person is, not necessarily their rates. Most of the time, if they look across the border to France, it’s because they really have to. Having successfully run fundraising campaigns and expanded into several foreign countries, Malt is in a position to accompany its clients and respond to calls for tenders, particularly in Europe. This critical mass in Europe is of benefit to freelancers: if we can cover several zones, freelancers will be able to work on various projects more or less anywhere.

Did the 2022 takeover of Comatch, a Berlin-based consultancy firm, enable you to expand the types of consultancy missions proposed by freelancers, beyond tech?

The primary aim was to establish a German presence in Germany. That way we can move much faster with clients already in situ. But you’re right, the other objective was to develop a business line we weren’t necessarily identified with, i.e. management or transition management consultancy, perhaps with more experienced and slightly older profiles. We want to shift from being a generalist platform to being a multi-specialist, which means we want to be the best in design, in tech, but also in strategy or transition management consultancy. 

Has the job market become a kind of user journey where optimization is essential in order to be effective?

Yes it has, I don’t know if it’s a good or a bad thing, but we have all become a product on the market. Freelancers are highly aware of this. The problem for employees who have been in the same firm for 10 or 15 years is that they don’t have that capacity to turn around. Careers nowadays are less and less linear. People do a bit of everything, whether as employees or freelancers, or even both at once. That’s also why the public authorities, just like the social security and pension systems, need to adapt to this new reality. Each of us has a bigger role to play in paving our career path. It’s really important for people to have the choice, to do things in a way that suits them.

Does society need to “desacralize” or unpack the concept of work, which has become a catch-all term? 

No doubt about it. Only 6% of French employees feel committed to their work: it’s a horrible thing to admit to yourself that you don’t enjoy your time at work, and un thinkable to continue in that way given the amount of time work takes up. I don’t really believe in the so-called work-life “balance”. It implies that one is opposed to the other, that one is good and the other bad. But if you work eight hours a day, how can you say it’s not part of life? Working (at least) as many hours as employees, freelancers are highly committed. There is no notion of subordination – or almost submission – that you find in the French labour code. Companies are clearly realising that they have to think differently about how they engage their employees. People no longer want to be subjected to a job they don’t like in a place they don’t like. At Malt, we need to further develop our study to include public authorities and really raise awareness. There is more than salary-paid work in life, there are many different forms. We should think in terms of “activities” rather than “jobs”.