Prarthana Prakash

Spain will tackle its ‘rich landlords and poor tenants’ problem by hiking property taxes to 100% for non-Europeans

/europe/2025/01/14/spain-housing-crisis-property-taxes-non-eu-residents/

Ryan Hogg

Ryanair Group CEO Michael O'Leary gestures while making a point during a press conference with Eddie Wilson, CEO of Ryanair, and Jason McGuinness, Commercial Director, to talk about the future of the company's operation in the Portuguese market on July 23, 2024 in Lisbon, Portugal. on July 23, 2024 in Lisbon, Portugal.

From lost drink sales to excess fuel, here’s a breakdown of the €15,000 bill Ryanair is seeking from air rage passenger

/europe/2025/01/14/ryanair-lost-drink-sales-excess-fuel-breakdown-of-the-15000-bill-seeking-from-air-rage-passenger/

Gazprom—once a major source of revenue for Russia—considers cutting 40% of HQ staff as war takes its toll

/europe/2025/01/14/gazprom-russia-cutting-hundreds-jobs/

Exterior view of the buildings of TUe with the logo of the university and Palestinian flag. Dutch students of Eindhoven University of Technology TU/e along with staff and international students and supporters protest for Palestine and set up an encampment on the lawn of the university campus between the buildings on May 13, 2024.

Dutch chipmaking giant ASML’s key feeder university, located just 5 miles away, suspends lessons after cyber attack

/europe/2025/01/13/dutch-chipmaking-giant-asml-key-feeder-university-5-miles-away-suspends-lessons-cyber-attack/

U.K. regulator says Google has ‘strategic market status’ and launches probe into search dominance

/europe/2025/01/14/uk-regulator-says-google-has-strategic-market-status-launches-probe-into-search-dominance/

Oliver Devos

Bloomberg

Billion pound lawsuit in U.K. trial set to determine whether Apple abused app store dominance

/europe/2025/01/13/billion-pound-lawsuit-uk-trial-apple/

James Hirai

U.K. bond sale to gauge investor appetite after market turmoil

/europe/2025/01/14/uk-bond-sale-to-gauge-investor-appetite-after-market-turmoil/

Lloyds Bank will tie its senior bankers’ 2024 bonuses to their office attendance

/europe/2025/01/13/lloyds-bank-senior-bankers-bonuses-office-attendance/

Antonio Vanuzzo

Prada hires Citi to evaluate purchase of Versace, Sole reports

/europe/2025/01/10/prada-hires-citi-to-evaluate-purchase-of-versace/

Alex Ledsom

Nine million square meters of office space is vacant across France. Can ‘urban recycling’ make way for housing or leisure?

/europe/2025/01/14/nine-million-square-meters-of-office-space-is-vacant-across-france-urban-recycling-housing-leisure/

British pharma giant GSK to acquire U.S. drug developer IDRx in $1.15 billion deal

/europe/2025/01/14/british-pharma-giant-gsk-to-acquire-us-idrx/

Replica landmarks and tourist taxes: How visitor hotspots are fighting back against overtourism

/europe/2025/01/15/city-visitor-hotspots-fighting-back-overtourism/

Fortune Europe provides smart and timely business news in European markets.

Fortune Europe

Fortune Europe | Fortune Europe

The luxury goods market has created its own crisis, and it won’t recover until after 2027

/europe/2025/01/13/luxury-goods-market-slowdown-state-of-fashion/

Sharon Price John credits her daily routine for her enduring enthusiasm for the toy retailer, and gave Fortune an exclusive look at her day, which kicks off before sunrise. 

Inside the daily routine of Build-A-Bear’s CEO who led a multi-million turnaround

Sharon Price John joined the company in 2013.

Features

Build-A-Bear's CEO gave Fortune an exclusive look at her day, which kicks off before sunrise. 

Inside the daily routine of Build-A-Bear’s CEO 

The best thing about Build A Bear, in my opinion, is that every day is completely different. When you step into a CEO role, you're automatically over all the functional areas, many of which you may not have ever worked in before. There's always a learning curve there, and I think it's really important to be intellectually curious and surround yourself with people that are smarter than you. Hi, I'm Sharon Price John, the president and CEO of Build. Workshop. I'm 60 years old and this is a day in the life series. I wake up around 6 a.m. and even though my phone is right beside me, I try not to look at it up on that first moment. I try to get in a good mood and think about what's great about the day, not be overwhelmed with what's next on the calendar or what emails came in overnight. Just take. 5 minutes or 10 minutes and be appreciative of everything about that day already. I'm a coffee addict. I drink 2 or 3 cups a day, but that's the first thing that I do before I do anything. And then while I'm having that first couple of cups of coffee, I do check all my emails. I don't always eat breakfast. I, I eat when I'm hungry, but if I do eat, it's usually going to be granola and. Fruit, maybe a bagel and cream cheese. Usually I walk about 1 mile in the mornings. Often I'm listening to a podcast or maybe I'm meditating depending on what's going on, but then I come back, get ready, go into the office. I live in Saint Louis, which is where Bild A Bear was founded back in 1997. We have moved the headquarters since it was originally created, um, from the. The outer edges of the city to downtown St. Louis. We have a 4 story building there where we also have a build a bear in the main floor that people come to, and that's always a lot of fun just to be able to go downstairs and remember why you do what you do every day. But it's a very short commute for me. It's probably less than 15 minutes on most days and I drive in from my home in an area called the Central West End, which is a really Old and special area of St. Louis, we're adjacent to a beautiful park called Forest Park. It's the largest municipal park in the United States actually. In just a matter of moments. You are in downtown St. Louis. I see the arch, usually the sun's coming up over the arch most mornings when I'm driving in, and then once you get back out just a few miles, I have that park very close to my home and. Can get away from it all really quickly. If I am in town, I am walking every week in Forest Park, often multiple times per week. I will go in when the first meeting starts, so that could be anywhere from 8 to 9 o'clock generally. Our meetings last usually an hour, sometimes an hour and a half, and there are definitely days that are completely back to back. No lunch. You have to squeeze in a bathroom break. It's nonstop. They might be from in person to combination of in person and on our our team's meetings sometimes they're just completely a teams meeting. They can be anywhere in the world and then once a week we have something. Called our bear Quarters meeting, which is in person and everyone comes in and I'm often speaking on the stage during that just giving people updates really it's informal but it's an important part of what we do. I will often bring my own lunch because I like to eat healthy food and we have a great canteen, but as my husband would say, I'm I'm kind of a picky eater. I eat when I have a break and I eat when I'm hungry. I'm notorious for forgetting to eat, which I know sounds crazy to some people and might not even sound healthy, but trust me, I'm healthy. You're asking me how I structure my afternoons. I don't. I have. admin extraordinaire who understands most of the time what I need, what are the important meetings, what are not, what are the what are some of the external needs that we have, what can get pushed off. It's absolutely critical in my opinion for someone in my role or a sea level role where there are so many people and things tugging on your time and your Attention to have that intelligent thoughtful filter so we look over my schedule usually Monday mornings and Friday nights or Friday evenings and sometimes Thursday evenings to walk through the next few weeks of what's going on, particularly as it relates to travel. I try to pack my travel full so I like to know when I'm going where so I can make sure I'm making them. Best possible use of that travel time. I try to leave Fridays a little bit open so I can collect my thoughts for the day or or the week rather. What time do you normally stop working in the office? In the traditional sense, probably around 6, 6:30, but a CEO in a town like Saint Louis, and I'm probably anywhere, um, you have a lot of responsibility. Perhaps we have people in from out of town. Um, whether it's a board meeting or there is someone from one of our partners, it's occasionally important for me to come in and shake hands with those individuals and sometimes have dinner depending on what's going on, so I have a job to do in those circumstances. Now I'm also a mom of three kids, and they're now older. They're 25, 22, and 19. so it's a much different environment now than it was when they were much younger. There's always things going on, but then we work hard to have that down time and, and I think that it's, uh, it's important to put your family first, but you know, the, the build a bear is also a part of my family. So this is turning out to be a sad thematic. I don't cook dinner. Because I'm not that good at cooking, but my husband is. In fact, uh, he's a very good cook. We actually own restaurants and a hard cider company and he generally has some food ready for us. When the weather's good, we eat outside, we have a kind of a, a really nice back patio and it's just great to be outside and. And enjoy sometimes so even with a glass of wine in the evening and, and whatever he's put together for us. Sometimes there might be some things that I'll need to circle back on that I didn't get to um after dinner. I do, you know, some personal work or I'll think about what I want to wear in the morning and try to like map out and make sure I know I really. I'm understanding what my next day is going to look like. Sometimes I have to, um, you know, think about the whole day, like if I have an event that next day, like what I'm going to wear, what I'm going to take, so I can transition and I go to bed a little bit early, you know, 9, 10-ish. I'm, I'm probably down by 10 o'clock.

Executives from OpenTable, Land O’Lakes, and Salesforce share how they’re deploying AI agents to transform industries, from restaurant reservations to agriculture and beyond. Discover how these innovators are using AI to enhance customer service, boost productivity, and reshape the future of work.

Why Leading Companies See AI Agents as the Future of Work

Conferences

Executives from OpenTable, Land O’Lakes, and Salesforce share how they’re deploying AI agents to transform industries, from restaurant reservations to agriculture and beyond.

At the Fortune  Brainstorm Tech Dinner in Las Vegas, Fortune's Andrew Nusca interviews Mark Cuban about his work with Cost Plus Drugs. Cuban discusses disrupting the pharmaceutical industry, tackling healthcare inefficiencies, and the role of AI in business innovation, while also sharing insights on NBA viewership trends.

From $160K to $19K: Mark Cuban’s Cost Plus Drugs Saves Millions for Employers

At the Fortune Brainstorm Tech Dinner in Las Vegas, Fortune's Andrew Nusca interviews Mark Cuban about his work with Cost Plus Drugs. Cuban discusses disrupting the pharmaceutical industry, tackling healthcare inefficiencies, and the role of AI in business innovation, while also sharing insights on NBA viewership trends.

At Fortune Brainstorm Tech Dinner Mark Cuban discusses his efforts to disrupt the pharmaceutical industry through Cost Plus Drugs, focusing on transparency in pricing and lowering drug costs.

At the Fortune Brainstorm Tech Dinner Mark Cuban discusses his efforts to disrupt the pharmaceutical industry through Cost Plus Drugs, focusing on transparency in pricing and lowering drug costs.

The job search landscape has undergone a dramatic transformation, with online platforms like LinkedIn, Indeed, and Glassdoor reshaping a multibillion-dollar industry. As these giants adapt to new competitors and evolving expectations, they're turning to AI to revolutionize job seeking with "personal talent agents." But will the rapidly evolving tech be a good or bad thing for job seekers? 

Inside the $11 Billion Job Recruiting Business

Careers

The job search landscape has undergone a dramatic transformation, with online platforms like LinkedIn, Indeed, and Glassdoor reshaping a multibillion-dollar industry.

How we search for jobs has transformed drastically over the last two decades. Platforms like LinkedIn, Indeed, and Glassdoor are among the key players in online recruitment. These companies have reshaped their industry, carving out an $11 billion market projected to grow to $41 billion by 2032. And in a survey of 1000 job seekers, 40% of respondents credit job search engines to securing an interview. 35% say company websites are the way to go, and 34% say word of mouth networking is the best. way to nail down an interview. But today, the industry is more than just listing a job or networking to find one. The rise of AI and evolving expectations from both employers and employees are driving hiring companies to new levels of innovation. But just how are these companies adapting with new competitors coming to the market, and how will AI play a role in our future job searches? Indeed is one of the key players in an increasingly competitive market. It's owned by Recruit Holdings, a Japanese employment agency with a market capitalization of $75 billion. That's larger than some of Japan's biggest named companies like Honda Motor and Nintendo. Indeed flexes as the number one job site in the world with over 350 million unique visitors every month in 2023, and it intends to stay that way. Leading the effort is Chris Hyams, CEO of Indeed, who joined the company in 2010 as vice president of product. Hyams credits the company's job-first approach for building trust in its 20-year history. We exist only to help people get jobs and I believe the most important factor in influencing how a company makes decisions about their products and their services is how they make money. That's because Indeed gives employers the option to sponsor a job listing with prices starting at $5 a day or $150 a month. We only make money when we are helping an employer and a job. Or connect, which means that all of the data that we collect from job seekers is used only to help them better match for the best opportunities possible. They're going to find the opportunities they're looking for, and they won't be finding themselves reached out for irrelevant things or targeted for advertising. That's not why they came to the site in the first place. In deer is a hiring space with other sites like LinkedIn, which offers not only a constantly updating job board, but also a space to network with other career focused professionals. But Hiam says this comes with a cost. If you look at other businesses like LinkedIn, an amazing company, we have a huge amount of respect for them. A portion of the revenue comes from employment. They also make a huge amount of money from advertising and from sales and Other things. And so as a person who comes onto the site, are you being targeted just for employment opportunities or for a whole host of other things? But adding social media into the mix of hiring has been massively successful for LinkedIn. In the 2024 fiscal year, LinkedIn reported revenues exceeding $16.37 billion up from almost $15 billion in the previous year. The platform boasts over a billion members in 200 countries and regions and has also ranked 116th on America's most innovative companies by fortune. LinkedIn's revenue streams include a significant contribution from advertising, which generated $5.9 billion in 2022. Meanwhile, its premium membership surpassed $1.7 billion as of March 2024. Glassdoor, also acquired by Recruit Holdings, has built a reputation for services that encourage transparency in the job market. Christian Sutherland Wong, CEO of the job site, emphasizes that Glassdoor's platform allows people to hold employers accountable, particularly around pay transparency, a critical issue in today's labor market, and at the end of the day, it's. that's going to be the ultimate solve for a lot of pay inequity that we see in the US and around the world. The platform's option to be anonymous has made it a popular outlet for employees to be honest about their employers, and the anonymity has built trust and help prospective employees understand what really goes on behind the scenes at companies. As of 2024, Glassdoor reports. 63 million unique monthly visitors and hosts more than 212 million reviews, salary details, and workplace insights. The value of Glasso's platform is that we have trust with the people who use it, and so we put in a ton of processes and a ton of investment in making sure that people can trust the platform. Without that trust, we can't exist, so we take it really, really seriously. Despite their progress, these companies, like many others in various industries have also faced layoffs. In 2024, LinkedIn reportedly laid off about 200 employees from its engineering and customer support teams. In May, Indeed laid off around 1000 employees, representing about 8% of its workforce. Artificial intelligence has also become a focal point for job sites looking to utilize technology to improve efficiency. Rere Holding is investing heavily in AI. The company's leaders tout this as a new era in hiring that will provide users with a personal talent agent powered by generative AI. I see what AI can do is effectively take this kind of very white glove experience and make it available for the masses. An agents could be on your side to take you through your job seeking journey and make it a much smoother and more powerful experience for you as a job seeker. For Indeed, this approach to AI is also at the core of their strategy. If you think about how a talent agent works for athletes and for musicians, that is someone who understands everything about. You about the market and who works tirelessly on your behalf. This is one of the things that generative AI can actually bring. We have the first versions of this that we are going to be releasing in the coming months, and we see a real future where every single person will have a champion just for them that is helping and working tirelessly to connect them to the best opportunities. As the hiring landscape evolves, platforms like Indeed, LinkedIn and Glassdoor aim to connect people with opportunities in smarter and more efficient ways. AI is set to play a pivotal role in transforming job seeking, promising agent-like chatbots to improve the experience for users. But the question remains Will AI be a force that better connects humans to jobs, or will it diminish the number of humans needed in the workforce?

Europe - Fortune Europe

The luxury goods market has created its own crisis, and it won’t recover until after 2027

Tech

U.K. regulator says Google has ‘strategic market status’ and launches probe into search dominance

Dutch chipmaking giant ASML’s key feeder university, located just 5 miles away, suspends lessons after cyber attack

Billion pound lawsuit in U.K. trial set to determine whether Apple abused app store dominance

Finance

U.K. bond sale to gauge investor appetite after market turmoil

Lloyds Bank will tie its senior bankers’ 2024 bonuses to their office attendance

Prada hires Citi to evaluate purchase of Versace, Sole reports

Retail

Nine million square meters of office space is vacant across France. Can ‘urban recycling’ make way for housing or leisure?

From lost drink sales to excess fuel, here’s a breakdown of the €15,000 bill Ryanair is seeking from air rage passenger

British pharma giant GSK to acquire U.S. drug developer IDRx in $1.15 billion deal

Lifestyle

Replica landmarks and tourist taxes: How visitor hotspots are fighting back against overtourism

Spain will tackle its ‘rich landlords and poor tenants’ problem by hiking property taxes to 100% for non-Europeans

From lost drink sales to excess fuel, here’s a breakdown of the €15,000 bill Ryanair is seeking from air rage passenger