The learning and development field, born out of the Industrial Revolution to enhance factory productivity and standardize work, has unexpectedly grown into a $391 billion industry, and one of the fastest growing fields in the past decade.

Of course, it didn’t start out as L&D. In fact, that term wasn’t formalized until almost 150 years after the Industrial Revolution. For an entire generation, the L&D task within an organization was specific: create and deliver one-and-done training programs. And because the role was limited by being linear, so became career mobility.

Luckily, the last several decades have brought advances to the learning and talent development field—from e-learning and neuroscience to social learning and AI. Although it was slow to start, the L&D field has more career opportunities than ever before.