talent-management
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Andrew Hantzis Found His Niche in the People Behind the Passwords
For 15 years, Andrew Hantzis has recruited in technology. The useful twist is that he spent the last decade going narrow - deep into identity security, where every new machine account and AI agent creates another human problem to solve.
Tanya Bakalov
Tanya Bakalov is the CEO and founder of HelloTeam, a Boston-based employee engagement and performance management platform she started in 2016. A Bulgarian immigrant and University of Delaware accounting graduate, she left Deloitte in 2005 to co-found SevOne, the network monitoring company she scaled with her husband from three people to more than 500 employees and roughly $100M in revenue before its acquisition. A 2016 EY Entrepreneur of the Year and Inc. Female Founders 500 honoree, she raised a $10M Series A led in large part by payroll billionaire Tom Golisano and is pointing HelloTeam at AI-driven employee retention.
Joshua Barrow
Joshua Barrow is a serial entrepreneur and CEO of Skillcentrix, the only consultancy 100% focused on Workday customers' entire talent lifecycle. With a Harvard CS background and 25+ years building and selling tech companies - from Breakaway Solutions' 1999 IPO to selling Third Sky to VMware in 2014 - he now sits at the intersection of HR strategy and enterprise software, helping healthcare organizations make skills data safety-critical rather than just strategic.
Kian Katanforoosh
Kian Katanforoosh is the CEO and co-founder of Workera, an AI-powered skills intelligence platform that has raised $55.5M and serves enterprise clients including Samsung, Siemens Energy, and the U.S. Air Force. Born in France to Iranian immigrant parents, he came to Silicon Valley via Stanford, where he co-created the Deep Learning Specialization on Coursera with Andrew Ng, reaching over 4 million learners. He holds Stanford's Walter J. Gores Award (the university's highest teaching honor) and was named a Forbes 30 Under 30 and World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer in 2025. His mission: make elite mentorship - the kind he received from Andrew Ng - accessible to anyone through AI-powered skill assessment and personalized learning.
Tina Ferguson
Tina Ferguson is a People Practices Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), where she has helped shape the human infrastructure of the venture capital world since 2012. She was the first person hired to build and scale the People Practices function at a16z, advising portfolio founders across consumer, web3, fintech, and gaming on organization design, DEI, executive team integration, talent management, and compensation strategy. With prior stints at Cisco Systems, Morgan Stanley, Opsware, and Trend Micro, she brings a rare blend of enterprise rigor and startup agility to one of the most influential VC firms in the world.
Tips Out
Tips Out (known online as TipsOutBaby) is a gaming entrepreneur and Creator Scout at Andreessen Horowitz's a16z Games division, operating at the intersection of creator culture and venture capital. Best known as co-founder and COO/CEO of One True King (OTK) - the Austin-based creator collective he helped launch in October 2020 alongside Asmongold, Mizkif, Esfand, and Rich Campbell - he has quietly built one of gaming's most ambitious creator-led business empires. Beyond OTK, he co-founded Starforge Systems (a PC hardware company), Mythic Talent (a talent management agency), and Mad Mushroom (a creator-led game publishing label). In October 2023, a16z tapped him as a Games Creator Scout, formalizing his role as a bridge between gaming culture and the startup investment world.
Adam Mitchell
Adam Mitchell is CEO at Mitchell & Associates Talent, a SAG-AFTRA franchised boutique agency headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico with California operations - named one of Hollywood's top 7 agencies by Backstage.com. The agency represents hundreds of actors across commercials, studio films, streaming platforms, voiceover, and television, with credits spanning Breaking Bad, Stranger Things, Star Wars, and Disney productions. Operating at the intersection of the Southwest and Hollywood, Mitchell & Associates has built a family-like culture that distinguishes it from larger, impersonal agencies while punching well above its weight in major market bookings.