Leaders in Talent Podcast with Adriaan Kolff

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Leaders in Talent is a podcast for Talent Acquisition, People, and HR leaders who are building modern, scalable, high-impact talent functions. Each episode brings you in-depth conversations with the operators, founders, authors, and practitioners shaping how companies hire, develop, and retain talent. We go beyond theory. Guests share the decisions, playbooks, data, and lessons learned from scaling global teams, implementing new talent technologies, designing employer brands, building recruiting operations, and turning TA into a strategic business function. If you work in talent and are solving challenges around growth, capability, culture, or transformation, this podcast gives you practical insight you can apply today. Real conversations. Real operators. Real lessons.

  1. Oct 27

    52 Issues Before ROI: Hung Lee on Building Brainfood

    In this episode of the Leaders in Talent podcast, Adriaan Kolff sits down with Hung Lee, founder and curator of Recruiting Brainfood. Hung spent ten years as an agency recruiter, became the zero-to-50 hire for London tech start-ups, founded the talent marketplace Workshape, and started a newsletter to fill its pipeline. The newsletter became the business. The first issue went to one subscriber: himself. A friend told him to do it for a year before looking at ROI, so he kept going through the quit points, until issue 30, when a stranger recommended it on LinkedIn. Hung explains how a sponsor he tried to send away with a made-up price became his business model, why he still runs it alone, why he writes every word by hand ("writing is sharpening the thinking"), and how he works restaurant hours so it ships every Sunday. Then the big argument. If companies stay on closed, cloud-vended AI, Hung thinks they head to headcount zero, the way the cloud wiped out in-house IT departments. If they run AI on-premise, every hire becomes a capital investment that compounds the company's own intelligence, because people bring what an AI in a box cannot: they are embodied, connected and enculturated. Recruiters, he says, should back on-premise AI, and start recruiting for talent again rather than for tasks. He closes with three pieces of advice: invest in your network, raise your profile, and practise with AI every day. Timecodes 01:23 Welcome: Hung Lee, founder of Recruiting Brainfood 02:56 From zero-to-50 recruiter to tech founder: Workshape 06:23 How a lead-gen newsletter became Recruiting Brainfood 08:04 Quit points: one subscriber, 52 issues and issue 30 13:20 The first sponsor and the go-away price 18:39 A one-person media business, by choice 20:51 Writing by hand in the age of AI, and what counts as brain food 25:16 Restaurant hours: how the newsletter ships every Sunday 28:13 What TA leaders ask about: AI-native tech stacks and context 30:43 Tower Bridge, headcount zero and the case for on-premise AI 43:16 The AI dopamine loop, AI labs hiring recruiters and the end of IT departments 49:28 Three pieces of advice and the 2026 events list ___________________________ Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/matchr/ Get in touch with us: https://matchr.io/contact ___________________________ Connect with Hung Lee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunglee/ Connect with Adriaan Kolff: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriaankolff/ ___________________________ Resources mentioned in this episode: Recruiting Brainfood, Hung's weekly newsletter (free, every Sunday), and the crowdsourced Big List of Recruiting and HR Events to attend in 2026: https://www.recruitingbrainfood.com/ ___________________________ RSS feed: https://media.rss.com/leaders-in-talent/feed.xml

  2. Oct 20

    Leading Without Certainty: Jürgen Hartwig, Daimler Truck

    In this episode of the Leaders in Talent podcast, Adriaan Kolff sits down with Jürgen Hartwig, Human Resources and Labor Director on the Board of Management at Daimler Truck. Jürgen started his career 35 years ago, had his first leadership role more than 30 years ago, and has sat on the Daimler Truck board for ten years, responsible for around 100,000 people worldwide. Daimler Truck is placing several bets at once: diesel, battery electric, hydrogen and autonomous trucks. Jürgen explains why that makes reskilling a necessity rather than a buzzword, why leaders can no longer offer certainty about the future but can offer clarity about the process, and how labor law shapes not only how a company reduces headcount but how carefully it hires. He also tells the story of an HR town hall where half the room praised his openness and the other half said the boss had no clue where he wanted to go. Then the board agenda for 2026: performance culture and compensation ("if you want ownership and accountability, you should also see it on the payslip"), cost discipline, and AI. Jürgen shares how he decides what to focus on, why the VUCA world of 2015 now looks like kindergarten, why he has a digital coach in her mid-20s, and why HR faces more change in the next five years than in the last thirty. Timecodes 01:09 Welcome: Jürgen Hartwig, CHRO of Daimler Truck 02:06 Daimler Truck: 100,000 people, Mercedes-Benz, Freightliner and a six-person board 03:57 Germany's industrial story and life after being the hero 07:39 Diesel, battery, hydrogen: why reskilling is not a buzzword 10:34 Labor law and why it changes how you hire 15:33 Autonomous trucks and the driver shortage 18:59 Telling 100,000 people what change means for them 22:26 How leadership changed in 30 years 24:17 The board's five topics for 2026: performance, cost and AI 27:22 How he decides what to focus on 32:15 Leading yourself first: a digital coach, recovery and old friends 35:40 Why HR faces more change in five years than in the last 30 ___________________________ Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/matchr/ Get in touch with us: https://matchr.io/contact ___________________________ Connect with Jürgen Hartwig: https://www.linkedin.com/in/j%C3%BCrgen-hartwig-33aa892a/ Connect with Adriaan Kolff: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriaankolff/ ___________________________ Resources mentioned in this episode: Jürgen Hartwig on the Daimler Truck Board of Management: https://www.daimlertruck.com/en/company/corporate-governance/detail/juergen-hartwig ___________________________ RSS feed: https://media.rss.com/leaders-in-talent/feed.xml

  3. Oct 13

    Order Out of Chaos: Susan Chy, Founding Recruiter at Modo Energy

    In this episode of the Leaders in Talent podcast, Adriaan Kolff sits down with Susan Chy, Founding Recruiter at Modo Energy. Susan spent 15 years in talent acquisition, starting at Google and Amazon, then joined startups as the first recruiter at employee number 10, 20 or 30. We recorded in her first week at Modo Energy, a company in the energy and climate tech space. Susan walks through her first month in a company with no hiring playbook: assess what is in place and who the stakeholders are, become an expert in the product before the first candidate call, plan with founders and hiring managers as a partner, then execute and measure. Her rule is to create order out of chaos without building a bureaucracy: one standard interview process with room for engineering and sales to differ, shortcuts that keep the vetting, and a process that never trades quality for speed. Then the founder side of the job. Susan explains why she offers a test instead of advice ("let's try this, and if not, I'm happy to go back"), why data from a spreadsheet is enough when there is no ATS, how drop-off and withdrawals give first-time founders their "come to Jesus moment" about unicorn expectations, and why a founding recruiter has to make their own impact visible, from all-hands updates to a Slack announcement, instead of waiting to be asked. Timecodes 01:17 Welcome: Susan Chy, 15 years in TA from Google and Amazon to startups 02:33 The first month with no playbook: assess, plan, execute 05:20 Order out of chaos without the red tape 06:10 One interview process or twenty: standardizing across teams 07:31 Speed versus quality 08:58 When founders bring in their own hires: building trust 11:06 What older Susan does differently with founders 12:32 Metrics you can track without an ATS 13:54 Unicorn expectations and the come to Jesus moment 17:24 The first 30 days at a new startup 18:42 Make your impact visible: over-communicate 22:26 How to connect with Susan ___________________________ Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/matchr/ Get in touch with us: https://matchr.io/contact ___________________________ Connect with Susan Chy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanchy/ Connect with Adriaan Kolff: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriaankolff/ ___________________________ Resources mentioned in this episode: Modo Energy: https://modoenergy.com/ ___________________________ RSS feed: https://media.rss.com/leaders-in-talent/feed.xml

  4. Oct 6

    An EVP in a Month: Donja van Laarhoven on Scaling Robin Radar

    In this episode of the Leaders in Talent podcast, Adriaan Kolff sits down with Donja van Laarhoven, CHRO at Robin Radar Systems. Donja led HR, recruitment and employer branding at Hunkemöller, founded the employer branding agency Fanployer, and joined one of her own clients, Robin Radar, as CHRO almost two years ago. Agencies pitched her EVP programs of 100 to 200K and months of research. Donja's view: what your EVP is should already be known inside the company, and you can find it in a month. She shares her four building blocks (the talent persona, the company DNA, the strategy, and the USPs against competitors) and the two workshop questions that do most of the work: what are the top two reasons you work here, and what would you change? A strong EVP attracts the right talent, not all talent. Then the proof. Robin Radar went from about 125 people to almost 300 by the end of this year, hired 120 people last year from more than 10,000 applicants, and moved from filling 53% of vacancies within three months to 85%, with only two sourcers as outside help. Donja explains how Bright Minds Aim High runs through every touch point from application to probation, how she measures quality of hire and regretted exits, and what changes when the EVP goes to the US. Timecodes 01:03 Welcome: Donja van Laarhoven, CHRO of Robin Radar 01:35 From Hunkemöller to Fanployer to Robin Radar 04:13 Why a founder went back in-house: a CEO in every HR session 06:21 A love-hate relationship with HR and a seat at the MT 07:55 An EVP in a month instead of a 200K program 11:45 The four building blocks of an EVP 15:36 The two workshop questions that find the company DNA 18:29 Starting with data: the red, yellow and green map 21:04 120 hires, 10,000 applicants and fewer agencies 22:39 Bright Minds Aim High in every touch point, and the US 28:20 Measuring the EVP: quality of hire, regretted exits, AI-polished CVs 32:05 The team, the new office in Delft and TRC on 5 November ___________________________ Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/matchr/ Get in touch with us: https://matchr.io/contact ___________________________ Connect with Donja van Laarhoven: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donjavanlaarhoven/ Connect with Adriaan Kolff: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriaankolff/ ___________________________ Resources mentioned in this episode: Robin Radar careers: https://robinradar.recruitee.com/ The Recruitment Conference, 5 November, Amsterdam (Donja is a keynote speaker): https://www.therecruitmentconference.com/ ___________________________ RSS feed: https://media.rss.com/leaders-in-talent/feed.xml

  5. Sep 29

    Smaller Teams, Not Faster Recruiters: Andy Mountney, Elliptic

    In this episode of the Leaders in Talent podcast, Adriaan Kolff sits down with Andy Mountney, VP of Talent Acquisition & People Operations at Elliptic. Andy founded a recruiting agency early in a 25-year career in talent, then led global talent acquisition at Atlassian, where the ask was to go from fighting to hire 300 people a quarter to delivering 1,000. Today Andy runs a 10-person recruiting team at Elliptic with no coordinators, something he doesn't think could have worked two or three years ago. Yet he hasn't met a talent leader who has seen AI push productivity per recruiter through the roof: whole functions are getting smaller, the recruiter carrying the rec load simply does more things, and recruiter capacity is still capped by business and interviewer capacity. He also asks why Anthropic and OpenAI still appear to build their recruiting teams the SaaS and FAANG way, and why, in Anthropic's four Ds of AI fluency, it is discernment and diligence that make people stand out. Then the practical side. Andy shares where AI interviewers belong: clarifying fit for the 10% of applicants you can't place, or offering candidates a faster route, but not replacing the human conversation when you compete for high-value talent. He walks through buy versus build in the people tech stack, the four org design shifts he sees everywhere (from wider spans of control to headcount plans that stop at 12 months), and why he would rather throttle the inbound and speed up the ramp: it's always easier to build up recruiting output than to switch it off. Timecodes 01:18 Welcome: Andy's path from agency founder to Atlassian and Elliptic 05:37 Scaling Atlassian from 300 to 1,000 hires a quarter 07:16 Decoupling revenue from headcount 10:22 A recruiting team with no coordinators 13:20 Employer branding at AI speed, and why your values must be real 15:40 AI-made work and Anthropic's four Ds 18:10 AI-written CVs, inbound volume and AI interviewers 25:37 Why AI hasn't made recruiters more productive yet 27:45 Buy versus build in the people tech stack 32:23 Four org design shifts in the age of agents 36:13 Throttle the inbound, speed up the ramp 38:55 Andy's first 90 days at Elliptic ___________________________ Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/matchr/ Get in touch with us: https://matchr.io/contact ___________________________ Connect with Andy Mountney: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andymountney/ Connect with Adriaan Kolff: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriaankolff/ ___________________________ Resources mentioned in this episode: Anthropic's AI Fluency course (the 4D framework): https://academy.claude.com/courses/ai-fluency-framework-foundations Dave Hazlehurst, co-founder of Agentic People: https://www.linkedin.com/in/googledave/ ___________________________ RSS feed: https://media.rss.com/leaders-in-talent/feed.xml

  6. Sep 15

    A New Colleague, Not PowerPoint 2.0: Annika in der Beek, Statista

    In this episode of the Leaders in Talent podcast, Adriaan Kolff sits down with Annika in der Beek, Chief People Officer at Statista. A psychologist who somehow went business, Annika started in M&A, moved into HR consulting at Accenture, and joined About You in 2020 at 700 people, leaving after the IPO at 1,600. Since early 2024 she has been Statista's first CPO, hired as the founders stepped out and a new CEO took over. Statista is moving from a media company to a data and software business, with its data now inside ChatGPT, Claude and Microsoft Copilot. Annika explains what that does to the org underneath: why silos made sense in hypergrowth, what she found on arrival (nine HR teams across 13 countries, no central HR beyond contracts and payroll), and why transformation does not end after the first restructuring. She is candid about closing offices, not being the most liked person in the company, and learning that her last employer's playbook, a 20 minute walk away, did not transfer. The second half is about AI as a new colleague rather than a better PowerPoint: remodelling the content department sub-process by sub-process, a SharePoint HR assistant in Langdock, and the performance coach agent she wrote herself, which prepares leaders but is not allowed to fill in the review or press submit. Plus the math on token costs, and why she blocks hours every week to write agents. Timecodes 00:00 Cold open 01:32 Welcome, and Annika's own podcast 02:56 Statista, and a psychologist who went business 06:02 From media company to data business: why silos made sense 11:21 Nine HR teams, one company 15:30 Transformation does not stop 18:33 Advice to her younger self, and the blueprint trap 23:56 AI urgency you can see in the revenue numbers 28:29 AI as a new colleague, not PowerPoint 2.0 29:32 Content department, Langdock, and token costs 33:39 The performance coach agent that never presses submit 38:14 Never say never, and the first AI-free retreat ___________________________ Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/matchr/ Get in touch with us: https://www.matchr.io/who-we-are/contact/ ___________________________ Connect with Annika in der Beek: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annika-in-der-beek/ Connect with Adriaan Kolff: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriaankolff/ ___________________________ Resources mentioned in this episode: HR ungeschminkt, der ehrliche Personal-Podcast (German), with Annika in der Beek and Anjuli Mauer: https://hr-ungeschminkt.podigee.io/ ___________________________ RSS feed: https://media.rss.com/leaders-in-talent/feed.xml

  7. Sep 8

    Hiring Is the Last Step: Nancy Martinez, Relativity Space

    In this episode of the Leaders in Talent podcast, Adriaan Kolff sits down with Nancy Martinez, former Head of Talent at Relativity Space and now Head of Talent at Machina Labs. Nancy spent 17 years in talent acquisition, starting at Google as a technical sourcer and scaling Facebook and Twitter when both were under 500 people, before moving into hardware. She joined Relativity at 600 people, eight months before its first rocket launched, and left when the company was 2,100. When Eric Schmidt invested and became CEO, the Terran R timeline moved up and the team had to hire roughly 1,000 people in nine months. Nancy's first instinct was to ask how to hire faster, how many recruiters and sourcers to add. She decided those were the wrong questions. Instead she asked where the real bottlenecks were, whether leaders could absorb that pace of hiring, whether interviewers were trained and calibrated, and which roles would actually move the business forward fastest. Nancy explains why she tells people hiring is the last step, and infrastructure comes first: the tech stack, the data, interviewer training, employer brand, and a recruiting operations person hired before more recruiters. She also covers what surprised her moving from software to hardware, where TA becomes the bottleneck for the whole business, how she got the CFO, COO and CTO personally closing candidates, how she protected her team from burnout through periods of extreme intensity, and why she builds talent roadmaps instead of hiring plans. Timecodes 01:11 Welcome and Nancy's background 02:13 17 years in TA: Google, Facebook, Twitter, Honey 02:51 What Relativity Space is building 03:24 Joining at 600 people, eight months before Terran 1 04:13 Engineering products are an organizational challenge 05:02 Eric Schmidt arrives and the timeline accelerates 06:34 From 600 to 2,100: hiring 1,000 people in nine months 08:18 The wrong questions, and the ones she asked instead 10:52 If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority 12:41 Why hiring people is the last step 15:19 Educating leaders who only knew the SpaceX way 16:34 What surprised her moving from software to hardware 19:13 Competing for talent without winning on compensation 20:24 Getting the CFO, COO and CTO closing candidates 22:10 Urgency without burning the team out 24:52 How she handles the pressure herself 25:50 Joining Machina Labs 27:16 What she would do differently from day one 28:56 The hiring engine: tech, employer brand, data, recruiting ops 30:33 The three buckets of data she watches 31:44 Talent roadmaps instead of hiring plans 32:51 Where to find Nancy ___________________________ Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/matchr/ Get in touch with us: https://matchr.io/contact ___________________________ Connect with Nancy Martinez: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancymartinez/ Connect with Adriaan Kolff: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriaankolff/ ___________________________ RSS feed: https://media.rss.com/leaders-in-talent/feed.xml

  8. Aug 18

    Default Aggressive: Taylor Nelson on Scaling TA at Filevine

    In this episode of the Leaders in Talent podcast, Adriaan Kolff sits down with Taylor Nelson, Talent Manager at Filevine, the legal AI platform that grew from 230 to over 900 employees in the two and a half years since he joined as recruiter number three. Taylor started out hiring 50 people a week in high-volume staffing, and that agency DNA still shapes how his team of nine runs today. Taylor walks through the shift from operator to manager: letting go of the protective, commission-driven island mindset, moving from responsible for me to responsible for we, and the line from his own manager that stuck: you don't get points for doing it all yourself. His team fills every role in under 30 business days against an industry standard of 40 to 60, runs default aggressive communication with hiring managers, and fills out an intake sheet before any job is posted. He also shows the data spine behind the growth: recording himself doing 26 minutes of onboarding admin per hire to justify a recruiting coordinator who now saves each recruiter three hours a week, forecasting headcount with finance (270 hires projected this year, 300 done by late July), and what he would do differently, from hiring that coordinator on day one to unblocking technical hiring faster. Plus the question every recruiter now faces: telling the candidates who use AI as a resource from the ones using it as a crutch. Timecodes 01:18 Welcome and Taylor's background 02:00 Psychology degree to 50 hires a week in agency staffing 03:53 Recruiter number three at Filevine, now a team of nine 04:59 From me to we: the first-time manager shift 08:48 Agency habits worth keeping: 30-day fills and default aggressive 11:27 Building the case for more headcount with data 14:25 The coordinator math: 26 minutes per hire, three hours back per recruiter 15:58 Workforce planning with finance: 270 projected, 300 by July 18:16 What he would do differently 20:45 Intake sheets and the prioritization template 21:39 Manager habits: blocked time and specific sourcing sprints 23:53 Candidates using AI: resource or crutch 27:19 Three takeaways for first-time managers 30:09 The balcony and the dance 33:05 Where to find Taylor ___________________________ Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/matchr/ Get in touch with us: https://www.matchr.io/who-we-are/contact/ ___________________________ Connect with Taylor Nelson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylornelsonhr/ Connect with Adriaan Kolff: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriaankolff/ ___________________________ RSS feed: https://media.rss.com/leaders-in-talent/feed.xml

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Leaders in Talent is a podcast for Talent Acquisition, People, and HR leaders who are building modern, scalable, high-impact talent functions. Each episode brings you in-depth conversations with the operators, founders, authors, and practitioners shaping how companies hire, develop, and retain talent. We go beyond theory. Guests share the decisions, playbooks, data, and lessons learned from scaling global teams, implementing new talent technologies, designing employer brands, building recruiting operations, and turning TA into a strategic business function. If you work in talent and are solving challenges around growth, capability, culture, or transformation, this podcast gives you practical insight you can apply today. Real conversations. Real operators. Real lessons.

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