1. Hung Lee

Based in London, UK

 

The most consistently essential voice in global recruitment, Hung Lee published issue 492 of his Recruiting Brainfood newsletter this week — a weekly, manually curated digest that has become required reading for over 30,000 talent professionals worldwide. Throughout 2025, he hosted Brainfood Live, a weekly live event series covering everything from LinkedIn algorithm changes to AI-driven hiring to the ethics of agentic recruitment tools. His four-part essay series What Happened in Recruiting in 2025 — published in December 2025 — provided the most rigorous and honest industry retrospective available. Founder of WorkShape.io and the Recruiting Brainfood community, Hung is appearing at the Recruitment Agency Expo on 17 March 2026. The most read voice in the business.

 

2. Vanessa Raath

Based in Western Cape, South Africa

 

One of the most active and in-demand voices in global recruitment throughout 2025-2026. A talent sourcing trainer, AI literacy coach, and keynote speaker who delivered talks on AI in recruitment across five continents during the review period — including Talent Acquisition Week in San Diego in January 2026 and Recruiters Unite in Cape Town in March 2026. She ran weekly AI workshops for recruiters throughout 2025, trained over 8,000 recruiters across 100+ countries since launching her practice in 2019, and publishes one of the most practical newsletters in the space. Her January 2026 piece Global Recruitment: 5 Bold Predictions was among the most shared pieces of recruitment content of the year. A genuinely global voice rooted in practical, no-BS training.

 

3. Matt Alder

Based in Edinburgh, UK

 

Host of Recruiting Future — one of the world's most listened-to talent acquisition podcasts — Alder published his 700th episode milestone during the review period and reached over 800 total episodes by early 2026, with new episodes publishing weekly through February 2026. Each episode features senior TA practitioners and HR technology thinkers navigating AI adoption, workforce transformation, and the changing role of the recruiter. His February 2026 Round Up covered episodes on TA business impact, AI adoption strategy, and recruiting at the speed of AI. Named a globally respected talent acquisition futurist by LinkedIn, Alder is one of the most consistent long-form thought leaders in the space.

 

4. James Caan CBE

Based in London, UK

 

With 3.3 million LinkedIn followers, James Caan is one of the most followed voices in the global recruitment industry. Founder of Recruitment Entrepreneur — an investment firm that has backed over 45 recruitment businesses worldwide — Caan launched Ingenia Global Partners in 2025, marking a significant new chapter for the Recruitment Entrepreneur platform and extending its reach into the US market in partnership with TekWissen. A former Dragon on BBC's Dragons' Den, his background includes founding and selling Alexander Mann (for £130M in 2002) and scaling Humana International to 140 offices across 30 countries. Active on LinkedIn throughout 2025 and a regular voice on entrepreneurship, leadership, and the future of the recruitment industry.

 

5. Jan Tegze

Based in Czech Republic

 

Published How to Talk to AI in 2025 — a practical, recruiter-focused guide to working with AI tools including ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini — adding to his Full Stack Recruiter and Job Search Guide canon that has been adopted by practitioners in dozens of countries. A Director of Talent Acquisition with global experience across EMEA, AMER, and APAC, Tegze is the founder of Sourcing.Games and a regular contributor to industry events and publications throughout 2025. Featured in Hung Lee's Recruiting Brainfood throughout the review period, and cited as one of the most practical writers bridging the gap between recruiter craft and AI literacy. His ability to translate complex technical concepts into immediately usable practice makes him one of the most valuable educators in the space.

 

6. Glen Cathey

Based in Tampa Bay, USA

 

SVP, Consulting Principal for Talent Advisory and Digital Strategy at Randstad Enterprise, Cathey is one of the most authoritative voices on AI in talent acquisition globally. Featured in LinkedIn's Future of Recruiting 2025 report, he has spent the review period advising organisations on how to build AI-enabled hiring strategies that augment human judgement rather than replace it. A seven-time speaker at both LinkedIn Talent Connect and SourceCon, he authored multiple pieces on Randstad's global insight platform throughout 2025 covering AI agents, psychosocial safety, and workforce planning. Board member of the Velocity Network Foundation and the Bellator Recruiting Academy, which supports military veterans transitioning into recruitment careers.

 

7. Johnny Campbell

Based in Dublin, Ireland

 

CEO and co-founder of SocialTalent, the talent acquisition training platform trusted by Siemens, Cisco, GitLab, Nokia, Electronic Arts, and thousands of other global organisations. In 2025, Campbell launched SocialTalent's interview intelligence platform on the SmartRecruiters marketplace — a significant product milestone — and hosted the Talent Summit 2026 in March. The Hiring Excellence podcast, which he hosts weekly, featured senior talent practitioners and thought leaders throughout the year. His consistent output on how organisations can use technology to hire more fairly and effectively, combined with SocialTalent's scale of impact, makes him one of the most operationally important voices in the global TA conversation.

 

8. Lou Adler

Based in Laguna Beach, California, USA

 

Founder and CEO of The Adler Group and creator of the Performance-Based Hiring methodology — the only validated end-to-end hiring system adopted by companies including Lincoln Financial, AIG, McKinsey, LinkedIn, and Disney. With a LinkedIn newsletter of over 250,000 subscribers and posting activity as recently as this week in March 2026, Adler remains one of the most consistently active voices in recruitment despite being one of its most tenured practitioners. His workshops continue to run in early 2026, including a LinkedIn Live event in February featuring key metrics and AI-enabled hiring frameworks. Over 50,000 recruiters and hiring managers have attended his workshops over 40+ years. The original practitioner-turned-thought-leader.

 

9. Katrina Collier

Based in London, UK

 

Author of The Robot-Proof Recruiter and Reboot Hiring, and a global keynote speaker and facilitator focused on the human side of recruitment — the part that technology consistently fails to solve. Throughout 2025, Collier continued her international speaking schedule and hosted The Hiring Partner Perspective (Unedited) podcast, exploring the real dynamics between HR, recruiters, and hiring managers. Founder of DisruptHR London and an Ambassador for Hope for Justice — an anti-modern-slavery charity — her community impact within recruitment is matched by her genuine philanthropic commitment outside it. A consistent, credible, and genuinely principled voice in a profession that needs more of them.

 

10. Toby Culshaw

Based in Wealden, UK

 

Moved from Amazon to ServiceNow during the review period, continuing to lead talent intelligence strategy at the highest level of the industry. Author of Talent Intelligence: Use Business and People Data to Drive Organisational Performance — the first and most comprehensive book on the subject — and founder of the Talent Intelligence Collective community. Featured prominently in Recruiting Brainfood throughout 2025 for his writing on the ethics of HR technology, the limits of AI in talent decisions, and the strategic evolution of the TA function. Consistently named by Recruiter Magazine as one of the most influential in-house recruiters in the UK. One of the clearest strategic thinkers in recruitment globally.

 

11. Mathew Caldwell

Based in San Francisco, California, USA

 

Former Chief People Officer at Instacart and one of the most thoughtful and publicly active voices on the future of talent acquisition in a world reshaped by AI and shifting labour markets. Throughout 2025-2026, Caldwell's LinkedIn content on what great talent strategy actually looks like inside high-growth companies — covering sourcing, candidate experience, recruiter skills, and the structural changes AI is forcing on TA functions — continued to be widely shared among in-house talent leaders and recruiting practitioners. His practitioner's perspective, built on years of leading hiring at scale, gives his voice a credibility that purely advisory or analyst voices cannot match.

 

12. Matt Charney

Based in Dallas, TX, USA

 

One of the most incisive commentators on recruitment marketing, employer branding, and HR technology throughout 2025. A veteran recruiter-turned-industry-analyst whose writing cuts through vendor hype with rare honesty, Charney is widely cited across the talent acquisition community as a trusted voice on what actually works versus what is being sold. Active across LinkedIn and industry publications throughout 2025 with consistently engaged audiences. His willingness to challenge orthodoxy — including the AI adoption narratives that dominated TA in 2025 — makes him one of the most valuable critical voices in the space.

 

13. Jackye Clayton

Based in Waco, TX, USA

 

VP of Talent and DEIB at Textio, Clayton was featured in LinkedIn's Future of Recruiting 2025 report as a leading voice on responsible AI use in talent acquisition. Her work on bias mitigation in AI tools — establishing principles around transparency, fairness, and accountability in hiring technology — has become increasingly cited as organisations grapple with the ethical dimensions of automated screening. A consistent and engaged LinkedIn presence throughout 2025, with particular traction among TA leaders navigating the intersection of AI adoption and diversity commitments.

 

14. John Vlastelica

Based in Seattle, USA

 

Founder and CEO of Recruiting Toolbox and featured in LinkedIn's Future of Recruiting 2025 report as one of the most forward-thinking practitioners on the evolution of the recruiter's role. His concept of "intentional inefficiency" — the strategic value of deliberate human friction in an automated hiring process — became one of the most discussed ideas in global TA circles during the review period, cited by Hung Lee in Recruiting Brainfood as a must-read contribution to the field. A consistent speaker and advisor to senior TA teams across North America and Europe.

 

15. Irina Shamaeva

Based in San Francisco, USA

 

Described by Hung Lee in his What Happened in Recruiting in 2025 essay as marking the retirement of one of sourcing's greatest practitioners — though her decade-plus contribution to advanced Boolean search, sourcing methodology, and recruiter education continued to resonate deeply throughout the review period. Her influence on how an entire generation of recruiters approach talent sourcing is immeasurable. Named in Recruiting Brainfood's definitive retrospective of 2025 as one of the most important figures in the industry's evolution.

 

16. Benjamin Mena

Based in Washington DC, USA

 

Managing Partner at Select Source Solutions and host of The Elite Recruiter Podcast — a platform where top billers and agency owners share the real stories behind their success. Throughout 2025, Mena built one of the most authentic and practically useful content ecosystems in agency recruitment, with podcast guests sharing career trajectories and business-building strategies that resonate strongly with the competitive, entrepreneurial segment of the recruitment community. His background in cyber and data science talent headhunting gives him genuine practitioner credibility to go alongside his growing media footprint.

 

17. Rhona Pierce

Based in Tulsa, OK, USA

 

A rising voice in talent acquisition who joined Matt Alder as co-host for the October 2025 Recruiting Future Round Up — a recognition of her growing influence in the space. Active throughout 2025 on the intersection of employer branding, candidate experience, and the human dimensions of AI-augmented hiring. Her LinkedIn content consistently generates strong engagement among TA practitioners navigating organisational change and technology adoption, and her willingness to share honest experience from the practitioner trenches makes her one of the most authentic voices of her generation in recruitment.

 

18. Martyn Redstone

Based in London, UK

 

A regular contributor to Recruiting Brainfood's Brainfood Live series throughout 2025, Redstone produced some of the most thoughtful writing of the year on the intersection of AI, efficiency, and what is genuinely lost when recruiting processes are optimised beyond recognition. His essay on the limits of efficiency — featured and endorsed by Hung Lee as exceptional — challenged the dominant 2025 narrative that AI-driven speed is uniformly beneficial. A practitioner-intellectual whose work is increasingly cited by senior TA leaders wrestling with the philosophical dimensions of their function's transformation.

 

19. Neil Carberry

Based in London, UK

 

CEO of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) — the UK's largest recruitment industry body — and one of the most authoritative voices on employment law, labour market trends, and the regulatory environment for recruiters. Throughout 2025, Carberry was active on the Employment Rights Bill and its implications for hiring businesses, providing timely, credible commentary at a moment when UK employment law was undergoing its most significant reforms in decades. Regular contributor to Recruiting Brainfood and featured in Hung Lee's community acknowledgments throughout the review period.

 

20. Greg Savage

Based in Sydney, Australia

 

One of the most followed recruitment industry voices in the Asia-Pacific region and globally, with decades of agency leadership experience and a blog and newsletter that reaches tens of thousands of recruiters worldwide. Throughout 2025, Savage continued his characteristically direct commentary on agency recruitment strategy, fee negotiation, and the business of running a recruitment firm — all topics that resonate powerfully with the competitive, commercially oriented segment of the profession. His willingness to say what others won't has made him a trusted voice for agency owners and consultants navigating a volatile market.

 

21. Stacy Donovan Zapar

Based in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, CA, USA

 

One of the most widely recognised voices in candidate experience and recruiter efficiency, Zapar spent 2025 as an active trainer, speaker, and content creator helping TA teams build sustainable, human-centred hiring processes. Her work on reducing time-to-hire without sacrificing candidate quality has been widely cited by in-house teams. Founder of The Most Connected Woman on LinkedIn (a title she earned through genuine community building) and one of the most engaged practitioners on the platform throughout the review period.

 

22. Bill Boorman

Based in Agios Nikolaos, Corfu

 

Founder of #tru (The Recruitment Unconference) and one of the most energetic community builders in the global recruitment industry. Throughout 2025, Boorman continued hosting and facilitating unconferences and conversations that bring together practitioners, technologists, and thinkers across the TA ecosystem. His community-first approach — building genuine connection rather than content consumption — represents an important counterweight to the social media-driven influencer model of thought leadership. Genuinely impactful on how practitioners learn from each other.

 

23. Torin Ellis

Based in Baltimore, MD, USA

 

Diversity recruitment strategist and co-host of Crazy and The King podcast, Ellis has been one of the most consistent and credible voices on the intersection of diversity, equity, and talent acquisition throughout 2025. At a moment when many organisations were quietly retreating from DEI commitments, Ellis maintained his direct and data-informed perspective on why diverse hiring is a business necessity, not a compliance exercise. His work with organisations navigating the political headwinds of 2025 while still building genuinely inclusive hiring processes reflects both professional courage and practical expertise.

 

24. Mervyn Dinnen

Based in  London, UK

 

HR analyst and co-author of Exceptional Talent, Dinnen joined Matt Alder as co-host for the September 2025 Recruiting Future Round Up — recognition of his standing as one of the most respected analysts in the UK HR and talent acquisition community. Throughout 2025, his work on candidate experience, employer branding, and the human dimensions of technology adoption provided essential context for TA leaders navigating rapid change. A consistent, measured, and evidence-based voice in a field that sometimes values noise over nuance.

 

25. Alison Ettridge

Based in Brecon, Wales, UK

 

Founder of Stratigens — the talent intelligence platform — and one of the most credible practitioner-entrepreneurs in the recruitment technology space. Her endorsement of Toby Culshaw's Talent Intelligence book as "jam-packed with practical advice" and her commitment to buying it for every member of her team reflects her standing in the talent intelligence community. Throughout 2025, she continued building Stratigens' global client base and contributing to the conversation on how organisations can use labour market data to make more strategic talent decisions. A genuine builder in a space that increasingly defines where the most valuable recruitment thinking is happening.

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Congratulations to All 25 Honourees

 

Think a recruiter or talent acquisition leader belongs on next year's list? 

 

Nominations for the 2027 Industry Leaders Top 25 can be made here https://www.theindustryleaders.org/nominate

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Selections are made at the sole editorial discretion of The Industry Leaders based on publicly available information. Inclusion or exclusion does not constitute an endorsement, and positions within the list do not reflect a definitive ranking of merit.