The overview
Across almost five years at LinkedIn, I progressed through community and creator roles, built more than 30 communities serving over four million members, supported the Top Voices programme and contributed search insight to Collaborative Articles—an early generative-AI knowledge product combining AI-created starters with expert contributions.
Search demand gave the product direction. AI created the starting point. Expert contribution created the credibility.
01
Building Communities
Founded and scaled over 30 LinkedIn communities to 4 million+ members. The largest, The Break Room, grew to 750,000+ members and became LinkedIn's most successful community for frontline workers. Designed engagement loops, content systems, and moderation frameworks that turned passive audiences into self-sustaining communities.
02
Turning search demand into Collaborative Articles
For Collaborative Articles, I helped connect the product to real search demand: identifying the questions and keyword patterns professionals used, and translating them into topics and prompts capable of becoming useful, discoverable articles. AI generated the starting point; invited specialists supplied the experience, nuance and credibility that completed the answer.
03
Learning generative AI through a live product
Working with early GPT-4-era capabilities through LinkedIn and Microsoft's relationship with OpenAI gave me unusually early practical exposure to the gap between GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, the effect of prompt structure on output, and the importance of editorial and product safeguards around generated content.
04
Top Voices Programme
Led LinkedIn's invite-only Top Voices initiative recognising the platform's most influential contributors. Managed the end-to-end process from identifying emerging talent to evolving the programme. Partnered with Fortune 500 companies to grow organic presence through bespoke content and engagement strategies.
05
Lessons from Silicon Valley
Operating inside a company of LinkedIn's scale taught things you cannot learn anywhere else. The pace of decision-making, the rigour of data-driven culture, and the calibre of the people sharpened everything. Learned how to operate inside complex organisations, influence without authority, and think in systems rather than campaigns.
06
Connecting three different systems
The work sat at the intersection of search behaviour, professional identity and participation. A useful topic had to reflect a question people genuinely asked, give invited contributors enough structure to add meaningful experience, and become a page that could earn discovery beyond LinkedIn itself. That required thinking beyond keyword selection and considering the entire contribution loop.
07
What changed as a result
The work helped connect an emerging AI-assisted publishing format to real user demand while the wider community programme proved that professional audiences could be organised around durable interests rather than one-off campaigns. Across almost five years, I built more than 30 communities serving over four million members, with the largest exceeding 750,000 members.
The strategic takeaway
What this work demonstrates
My LinkedIn experience is why I approach AI search as a product, content and participation problem, not simply a new reporting dashboard.
