Need workforce, tools or expertise to start, recover or grow your local business?
Request qualified help. Our global community of Fellows will work with your team to solve the problem and build the capability to keep it.
Digitalisation and AI
Contribute your expertise. Take part in our programs, from anywhere.
Join a global Fellowship of qualified professionals putting their expertise to work where it rebuilds economies.
Reinventing for AI
The gap
one missing link
Businesses in fragile and emerging economies cannot find the expertise and workforce they need to sustain growth. At the same time, skilled professionals around the world work below their level, cannot find where their experience counts, or see their roles reshaped by AI. The expertise exists. It does not reach the businesses that need it.
Need expertise and workforce they cannot find
Skilled people quit and leave, budgets for hiring, tools and ways of working disappear, and business owners make every decision alone.
of Ukrainian industrial firms name staff shortage from mobilisation or departure as their top war-related obstacle.
Shortage and unused talent, side by side
The same economy lacks skilled people and leaves others without work, while experts abroad cannot see where they are needed.
estimated unemployment in Ukraine at the same time.
Have expertise with nowhere to apply it
Experienced operators, academics and specialists work below their level, outside their field or in roles AI is reshaping.
of university-educated workers in the EU are in jobs below their qualification, and almost 40% of non-EU citizens.
BrainGain.Expert is a non-profit impact accelerator that closes this gap through a collaboration where both sides gain. Businesses get experts who have solved the same problem before, and keep the capability when the work is done. Experts grow their own skills and put their knowledge to work in the economies where it makes the greatest impact. No one has to move: brain gain without brain drain.
Our ambition
value for every side
To build the channel that moves expertise from where it is underused to where it is missing, and to make it the aid that lasts: for businesses rebuilding fragile and emerging economies, and for experienced professionals anywhere in the world, who get to do work that matters at a scale they rarely find in their current role. Starting with Ukraine.
For businesses: capability that stays
We diagnose what holds the business back and match it with Fellows who have solved the same problem before. They work alongside the team, not instead of it, until new processes, roles and tools, including AI where it pays off, are in place and owned by the team.
After the main engagement, a Fellow can stay on in a fractional or full-time role. Businesses that put the changes into practice qualify for implementation grants and co-funded hiring for the roles they need most.
For experts: work that matters, at scale
Wherever you live, put your expertise to work on real business problems where it makes the biggest difference. For professionals who left their home country, it is a way to make their experience count there again. For professionals whose roles AI is reshaping, it is a way to put that experience to work where it is missing.
You take on projects of a scope rarely offered in a regular job, build an international track record and join a community of peers who share your standards.
For partners: impact you can support and verify
Funding for our programs follows execution: it goes to the businesses that do the work and makes their operations more efficient and sustainable. Every grant is tied to a clear result, from a role filled to a capability the team runs on its own.
Results are evaluated independently and published in an annual impact report, including the placements that did not work and why.
Our impact
counts
In a fragile economy, a business that keeps running is impact. It keeps people in work, pays suppliers and taxes, and holds the skills a country needs to recover. That is why we do not limit our programs to social enterprises: we work with any small or medium business ready to do the work, and we measure what changes.
Our theory of change
When a business gains the expertise and people it lacks, it solves an immediate operational problem and builds management and technical capabilities that stay after the engagement ends.
Across a cohort, we expect these firm-level gains to show up as higher productivity, measured as output per employee, jobs retained and created, and stronger links to suppliers and export markets. Over time, this contributes to a more resilient private sector and a broader tax base. We test each step of this chain through independent evaluation.
What we measure
We track results at every stage: businesses diagnosed, projects completed against target, and roles filled and kept at 6 and 12 months, including roles redesigned with AI. Two tests define success: people kept in qualified work and capabilities, including the tools the team adopted, that the team runs on its own.
A role counts only if it would not have been filled without the program, and failed placements are reported with the reason. Results are evaluated independently and published every year.
Our contribution to the SDGs
SDG 8, Decent work and economic growth: the growth of small and medium businesses (target 8.3) and full, productive employment (target 8.5), measured through net jobs and people moved into qualified work.
SDG 17, Partnerships for the goals: one model that connects businesses, experts, funders and technology partners, so that private expertise and public funding work toward the same results (target 17.17).
SDGs are the 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015 as a shared agenda for 2030.
Our priorities
one system
The BrainGain.Expert initiative exists for the people who rebuild an economy from the inside, and for everyone ready to stand beside them.
Businesses that keep economies running
Small, medium and strategically important large businesses in fragile and recovering economies that need people, tools or expertise to start, recover or grow.
Join the waitlist→Fellows who bring needed expertise
Experts, hands-on operators, senior professionals and academics who contribute their effort from anywhere, as advisors, fractional leaders or new team members.
Join the Fellowship→Partners who make it scale
Governmental organizations, foundations, companies and individual donors who fund the BrainGain.Expert initiative or sponsor a program they care about, and technology partners who add tools and resources to the BrainGain.Expert Resource Pool. Employers restructuring around AI and public funds for workers in transition can make it part of their own plans.
Partner with us→Support the initiative
with you behind it
Your support turns expertise into results: it funds the programs that match businesses with Fellows, and the grants that reward the ones who do the work. We work the way venture philanthropists do: we fund expertise, stay engaged from diagnosis to implementation, and release grants only to businesses that put the change into practice.
Individual donations
If you believe in what we do and want to be part of it, your gift matters. Whether you have worked in a fragile economy or simply believe expertise is aid, your donation helps a local business get the people it needs to start, recover or grow.
Donate→Sponsorship and partnership
Organizations can support our work, sponsor a specific program and raise its priority, or contribute technology such as licenses, cloud and AI credits to our shared Resource Pool. Let's build it together.
Partner with us→Our news
Follow BrainGain.Expert step by step: the programs, the Fellows and the businesses rebuilding with them, all made possible by your support.
People need people: why we built BrainGain.Expert
Businesses in fragile economies cannot find the expertise they need, while skilled professionals cannot find work that uses theirs. Why we built a non-profit to connect them.
Read more→Recovery starts inside the company: Program 01 in Ukraine
Ukraine is the first BrainGain.Expert program. How Program 01 puts experienced Fellows inside Ukrainian companies, and how we will prove the capability stays.
Read more→AI will take jobs: here is part of the plan
AI will take some jobs and reshape many more. The experience it frees up is what businesses in fragile economies lack. Here is how we can be part of the plan.
Read more→Support the
Foundation
Individual donations
Whether you have worked in a fragile economy or simply believe expertise is aid, your gift helps a local business get the people it needs to start, recover or grow.
How we accept gifts →Make a donation
Sponsorship and partnership
Companies and foundations can support the BrainGain.Expert Foundation, sponsor a specific program and raise its priority, or contribute technology to the BrainGain.Expert Resource Pool. Let's build it together.
Learn more→