Industry execs launch startup to help redundant workers and struggling businesses emerge from COVID

New Australian startup FLEXSTA has launched in a bid to solve workplace challenges and changes created by COVID.

FLEXSTA, which bills itself as ‘The future of work’, will be a “curated, invite-only community of highly skilled talent and like-minded industry professionals in the media, marketing, communications, content creation and data industries seeking flexible work opportunities”.

Co-founder Stephen Hunt said he and fellow co-founder Ben Grace built the business to solve two COVID-19 challenges.

Hunt is a former senior exec at Universal Music Australia

“First, we empower workers made redundant to take control of their careers and set up as sole traders.

“Secondly, we support businesses that have had to reduce their full-time headcount to stay solvent by providing them on-demand team capacity.

“Our hope is that these temporary interactions translate back into full-time work as the economy recovers.”

Grace noted the company’s lofty ambitions.

Grace is looking to help shape the future of work 

“Our vision for the ‘future of work’ is that the world will eventually be made up of billions of corporations with one employee that collaborate on projects to solve problems.

“COVID-19 has condensed years of forecasted progress towards that future into one year meaning that the future is now.

“FLEXSTA enables this transition while removing the anxiety of being made redundant at a time when the prospect of easily returning to the workforce before the final payment runs out is significantly less likely.”

The two entertainment and media execs said that under the FLEXSTA model, companies can scale up and down depending on circumstances, and flexibility in hiring the best global talent for specific projects.

It offers an automated process from coding to marketing,

One of its attractions is that it taps into a workforce that is combining work around new-found personal time freedoms and lifestyle choices as never before.

Hunt and Grace have worked for companies in the media, entertainment and tech industries across global offices in New York, Los Angeles, London, Singapore and Sydney.

One-time indie musician Hunt helped launch the world’s first Programmatic Buying Platform for Television (PTV) before returning from the US to Sydney as MD of emerging technology and media at Universal Music Australia, where he reimagined the business and ideas culture through the pillars of media, content and technology.

Grace was an early proponent of the convergence of brand and technology in posts in Australia, Hong Kong and America.

At a recent role as CTO for Havas Media Australia he was responsible for overseeing the deployment of its digital out-of-home agency.

He is now executive consulting leading companies to enter the Australian market.