Exclusive: LinkedIn’s Co-Founder Allen Blue and India Head Akshay Kothari talk about their plans for India

India is currently the second biggest market for LinkedIn globally. With a user-base of over 35 million, the country is of great strategic importance for the career-oriented platform.

“There’s still a lot of room for us to grow. Our vision is to create economic opportunities across the world, and that vision couldn’t be truer in India. One of the biggest issues here is the skill gap”, LinkedIn India Head Akshay Kothari says. He claims a lot of LinkedIn’s product innovation and optimization happens out of its India office in Bengaluru.

“There are teams here that are building platforms to be used globally. All of the work we do around e-mail notifications, push notifications, spam and search verticals are done here”, Kothari told Business Insider in an exclusive interview.

On the India product side, the company has already started optimizing the portal to make it better suited for India. Co-founder Blue says it’s not always about adding but intelligently subtracting stuff.

“Our new user registration is now optimized for slower network connectivity. We’re also producing localized content. We have an India Editor who curates content. That way the overall quality has improved a lot”, Blue says.

The company has not announced any expansion plans, but claims they’re ‘not discounting the option, and constantly evaluating opportunities.’