A Message from Elle Tucker, Chair, Global Summit Steering Committee
In May this year, in San Francisco, I stood in a room with representatives from sharing economy membership organizations, trade bodies and industry groups from nearly 20 countries around the world, as well as their members.
An exciting moment. Not just because this had simply never happened before, but because it was the start of something amazing, something global – something bigger than the sum of its parts.
The sharing economy is full of exciting moments, which is one of the reasons I’m pretty much obsessed with it. It seems to have the power to join hands around the globe: not surprising really when you think about how it creates real life communities through virtual connections.
So how did this, the inaugural Sharing Economy Global Summit, come about? Rewind six months and Jeremy Gottschalk – who I met through the Marketplace Risk platform – and I had a conversation about the US industry group, Technology Marketplace Collaborative (TMC) that he was setting up. I was working with him in my role on the Advisory Board of the Marketplace Risk Management Conference, through GangHut, the marketplace marketing agency I founded in 2018.
Jeremy had looked around the world and found sharing economy and marketplace member groups so that he could learn from their structure and organization. It occurred to him that if he could take inspiration from other similar groups, then so could they. But he swiftly realized that there was no event that brought them – and their members – together.
And so the summit was born, Jeremy the founder. This year, it needed careful handling to get started. We ‘bookended’ it around the Marketplace Risk Management Conference and really just waited to see what happened.
And what happened was amazing.
We had representatives from nearly every continent, from countries including Australia, China, Denmark, Egypt, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Poland, Singapore, Sweden and the US. I was delighted to be there as a member of Sharing Economy UK, the UK trade body.
Coming together gave us the opportunity to discuss problems faced by sharing economy organisations and their members around the world and to understand potential solutions – including building trust, educating users and providers to the benefits of marketplaces, dealing with fraud and scaling.
We also explored best practices and resources available to marketplace startups, as well as debating ideas on structuring sharing economy membership organisations and creating trust seals and accreditation schemes.
And more than that, we connected. We talked, debated, argued, laughed - and yes, we ended up in a San Francisco dive bar one night. Sitting between sharing economy obsessives like me from Italy, Denmark, Singapore, Japan, Australia… (the list goes on) listening to the sound of creativity in many languages was a pleasure and a privilege.
Another privilege is to be Chair of the Steering Committee for the 2020 summit, especially as it’s right here in the UK where I live. And now that the summit has flown the nest, it’s not at the same time as the Marketplace Risk Management Conference: it’s all grown up and has a venue and date of its own: 5th and 6th of February in London, the world’s business innovation hub.
It’s going to be bigger and better than the inaugural summit, and we’re thrilled to be hosting it at the historic Lloyds of London, which is the oldest insurance marketplace in the world.
So what does the summit mean for you? It’s an opportunity to learn, network and collaborate with industry leaders from around the world who are focused on growing the sharing economy globally.
Our speakers are the most influential voices from the sharing economy: from the biggest marketplace unicorns to the smartest minds in academia, to the most reliable partners and service providers that they all rely on. They all have experience with the issues and concerns that face this rapidly evolving space. And what’s even better is that they are all equally passionate about growing the industry.
It’s also an opportunity for startups to understand best practices on a myriad of topics. Organized along three distinct tracks (property, services and transportation), the summit offers programming and resources from experts focused on trust and safety, digital identity, screening, payments and fraud prevention, data privacy and cybersecurity, compliance and regulatory, legal and insurance, product, technology and innovation.
But more than that, it’s an opportunity to be part of something really unique. The Sharing Economy Global Summit is the first - and only - event that brings sharing economy organizations and their members together to support this worldwide ecosystem.
In May this year we started something really special, and it’s grown because people, like Jeremy and me, believe in its goals. I hope you will come to the summit in 2020: as a speaker, sponsor, or attendee – whatever your contribution, you will be welcomed as only the sharing economy knows how.
Elle Tucker, Chair of Steering Committee, Sharing Economy Global Summit
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