GLG

GLG (Gerson Lehrman Group, Inc.) is a global information services company that operates the world's largest expert network, matching business and investment professionals with subject-matter experts for consultations, surveys, events, and related primary research.^[1][2] The company states that it works with approximately 1.2 million professionals across industries, roles, and geographies.^[2]

Founded in 1998 and headquartered in New York City, GLG pioneered the commercial expert network model. It reported roughly 3,000 employees and about $650 million of revenue in 2021, when it was described as the largest firm in its category.^[1]

What It Does

GLG's core product is the expert call: one-on-one telephone or video conversations between a client and a vetted network member with relevant operating experience.^[2] Clients use these calls for market diligence, competitive intelligence, idea generation, and problem-solving across strategy, operations, and investment decisions.

The company frames its offer around "experience-based insight" and positions itself as the platform for trusted human expertise, complementing traditional equity research and management consulting rather than replacing them.^[2]

Products

GLG's stated solution portfolio comprises:^[2]

- GLG Calls: one-on-one, multiparty, or translated conversations with experts. - GLG Surveys: quantitative B2B research drawn from the expert network. - GLG Integrated Insights: combined offerings such as market assessments, company research studies, and competitive landscape analyses. - GLG Qualitative: focus groups, workshops, discussion panels, and moderated sessions. - GLG Events: virtual and live roundtables, webcasts, and teleconferences with experts. - GLG Library: subscription access to event transcripts and replays.

Buyers And Use Cases

The company organizes its go-to-market around five buyer groups: financial services firms, private equity funds, consulting firms, law firms, and corporations.^[2] Its first customers were investors, and much of its early growth came from the investment community before it expanded to strategy consultancies and corporates in the mid-2000s.^[1]

Typical engagements include due diligence ahead of acquisitions, willingness-to-pay and pricing studies, market entry assessments, and short-term advisory placements of executives on transformation projects.^[2]

Compliance

The expert network business model has drawn regulatory scrutiny over insider trading risks, and GLG has developed extensive compliance controls as a result. Its policies prohibit consultants from sharing nonpublic information about their employer or any public company and from breaching ethical or legal restrictions on their knowledge.^[1]

The company markets what it describes as one of the most robust compliance frameworks for primary research, developed with thousands of clients, companies, and experts.^[2]

History

GLG was founded in 1998 by Yale Law School graduates Mark Gerson and Thomas Lehrman. It began as a publishing house producing industry guidebooks for institutional investors but abandoned publishing in 1999 after discovering clients preferred direct conversations with experts, launching subscriptions to its expert network instead.^[1]

Alexander Saint-Amand served as president and CEO until 2018, when Paul Todd, formerly of eBay, took over as CEO.^[1] The company raised private equity backing from Silver Lake Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, and SFW Capital Partners, which invested over $200 million in 2015.^[1]

In October 2021 GLG filed publicly for an IPO but withdrew the offering in March 2022.^[1] By 2021 the firm had more than 3,000 employees and offices spanning 22 cities in 12 countries.^[1]

Landscape

GLG is generally considered the largest of the expert networks by revenue and network size, ahead of rivals such as Guidepoint, Third Bridge, AlphaSense-hosted communities, and newer entrants including Dialectica, proSapient, and Tegus.^[1] Its scale advantage rests on network breadth, compliance infrastructure, and brand recognition among consultancies and buy-side firms.^[1]

As a primary-research intermediary, GLG differs from dataset vendors such as YipitData: its output is bespoke human insight rather than packaged data feeds, though survey and transcript products increasingly blur that line.^[2]