Does Your Expertise Have a Shelf Life?

Years of experience built your professional standing. But how secure is the organisation that gives it value?

rofessional expertise takes years to develop. It earns credibility, creates opportunities and establishes a position within an organisation. The more specialised the knowledge, the harder it can be to replace. For experienced professionals, this has traditionally provided a measure of security.

That security depends upon something easily overlooked. The organisation must continue to value the expertise and the work associated with it.

Across several industries, that relationship is being reconsidered.

The structure changes

In September 2026, BMW announced plans to reduce divisions and associated management positions by 20%, with comparable reductions further down the organisation. The programme accompanies the deployment of agentic AI and wider efforts to improve efficiency.

American Express subsequently announced approximately 3,500 job reductions, alongside plans to remove management layers and widen managerial responsibilities. Its management explained that organisational processes needed to be properly structured before further AI deployment.

The sequence is striking. Organisations can commit to removing established positions before the technology expected to support the new arrangements has demonstrated its full capabilities.

National Australia Bank announced plans to reduce up to 2,500 roles, including proportionally deeper reductions in senior management. In early November, Sequoia Capital announced that it would flatten its partnership, combine teams and discontinue its longstanding Monday partner meeting.

The motivations differ. Financial pressure, organisational complexity, competitive urgency and technological expectations all feature in these decisions. Yet the consequences reach into the structures through which experienced professionals have established their standing and influence.

A company can remain successful while its leadership decides that the organisation needs to operate very differently. Individual performance offers limited protection when the requirements of the position itself are being reconsidered.

The value of experience

Experienced professionals can become indispensable to established systems, processes and relationships.

Their capabilities can remain intact while the organisational arrangements that made them valuable are already under review.

A senior manager can continue delivering excellent results while leadership considers removing their management layer. A specialist can retain exceptional knowledge of a system scheduled for replacement. A respected adviser can retain their reputation while the decisions they traditionally influenced move elsewhere.

Employees may see little evidence that their work has become unnecessary while management is already preparing an organisation expected to need less of it.

Their assessment of security rests on what the organisation requires today. Leadership is making decisions about what it expects to require tomorrow.

Where does influence go?

The removal of management layers also raises questions about the distribution of authority.

Telia’s October restructuring involved transferring positions from its central Technology function into country operations. More responsibility can move towards local delivery while decisions about budgets, strategy and priorities remain elsewhere.

At Sequoia, the disappearance of the longstanding Monday partner meeting removes an established forum for collective discussion. The decisions previously considered there will still need to be made.

For experienced professionals, these changes raise questions that extend beyond whether their positions survive. Established relationships, formal responsibilities and access to decision-makers can all change in significance when the structure changes.

Where will consequential decisions be made? Who will acquire greater influence? And how visible will those changes be to the people whose positions depend upon existing arrangements?

The uncomfortable contradiction

The evidence also points in another direction.

In October, London Stock Exchange Group agreed to acquire Octus, a specialist credit-intelligence business, for approximately $3.535 billion. Its value includes proprietary information and expert analysis that cannot simply be obtained from publicly accessible sources.

Bank of America reported bringing in approximately 1,000 contractors to address software vulnerabilities identified with the assistance of AI.

While some organisations are reducing established professional structures, others are investing substantially in specialist knowledge and experienced judgement.

The contrast raises a difficult question about the changing value of professional experience. Why are some forms of expertise becoming less important to organisations while others command considerable premiums?

Years of success demonstrate what someone has contributed. They cannot establish how their organisation will value that contribution as its priorities, structures and dependencies change.

Are your greatest professional strengths still connected to the organisation being built, or primarily to the organisation you helped make successful?

Colin Gautrey, November 2026