Cat Almanzor Hancock
Sonepar
“Be open, be curious — in everything, be open.”
Cat Almanzor Hancock has been named to the Talent 100, Class of 2026, the annual award recognizing the 100 most exceptional leaders and practitioners in talent acquisition. Honorees are selected by the Talent 100 committee from thousands of nominations and candidates across the industry, chosen for the impact of their work, the depth of their craft, and their influence on the future of recruiting. This is Cat's story.
Cat Almanzor Hancock did not set out to build a career in talent acquisition, and that may be exactly why she has built such an interesting one.
Her degree is in fashion design, a background that gave her an eye for detail and a comfort with reinvention long before either became a professional advantage.
Nearly two decades later, she is a Regional Recruiter at Sonepar, an early adopter of new technology in her field, and a leader whose career has been shaped as much by the people who believed in her as by the roles she has held.
A Career That Began With A Conversation
Hancock's entry into HR came through a connection, which is fitting for someone who would go on to make connection her profession.
When the 2008 housing market crash reshaped her plans, a colleague's husband — then a talent acquisition manager at a hospital — opened a door.
She stepped through it as an administrative assistant in HR, expecting the detour to be temporary.
Within six months she had seen enough to change her mind.
"There's a lot of aspect in HR that I could learn," she recalls thinking — and by that same six-month mark she had become the onboarding specialist at Seattle Children's Hospital.
It was the first HR role of a tenure that would last eight years and span roughly seven different titles.
Finding The Work She Was Meant To Do
Somewhere in that progression, Hancock tried a stint in leave of absence administration and learned something valuable about herself.
It was not the right fit, and she said so.
The opportunity that followed — recruiting specialist on the talent acquisition team — proved to be the one that clicked.
"That's where I found where I'm supposed to be at," she says.
The reason, in her telling, is uncomplicated: "It's really the interaction with people."
By the time she left Seattle Children's, she was a program manager focused on recruitment marketing, social media and employer branding — an early signal of her instinct for where the profession was heading.
Leaders Who Believed
Ask Hancock who shaped her career and two names come immediately: Mary Alita Brisk, then director of talent acquisition, and Bart, her talent acquisition manager.
In 2016, Hancock spent three months in a coma.
Her leaders held her seat, brought in temporary support, and never stopped assuming she would be back.
"They really fought for me," she says. "They believed that I was going to come back."
She did — and within three to six months of returning, she was promoted.
Her recovery was supported by a team that gave her room to ramp back up at her own pace, keeping temporary help in place until she found her footing again.
What she remembers most is the nature of that belief, which extended well beyond her return.
"Not only believing I was going to come back, but believing in what I brought to the table," she says.
Without a traditional HR background, she had been given something rarer than a job description: leaders who saw her potential, partnered with her on her strengths, and helped her elevate the areas she was still developing.
Ten years on, she remains in touch with both of them.
Taking A Risk On A New Industry
Hancock spent the first chapter of her career primarily in healthcare, and the pandemic prompted her to reconsider what came next.
In 2021 she left healthcare talent acquisition altogether and made a deliberate pivot into electrical distribution — a leap she describes plainly as taking a risk on a totally different industry.
It paid off quickly.
She joined as a recruiter and was promoted to regional recruiter within a year.
Five years into that space, she has proven what she suspected all along: the craft of understanding people travels well between industries.
An Early Voice On AI
Hancock counts herself among the earliest adopters of AI in her field, and she was raising the subject with leadership before most organizations had a point of view.
About three years ago, she presented to leaders at her current organization on a topic nobody yet fully understood.
Her framing was practical rather than fearful: AI is here, so how will it affect talent acquisition, and what should the team learn now?
"There's no way of stopping it," she says. "How do we work with it and able to enhance our current processes?"
Today, at Sonepar, that early curiosity has become organizational muscle.
The company has an AI lead driving department-by-department training, and teams are learning to apply Copilot to the specifics of their own roles.
For Hancock, the technology is no longer a topic to be debated but a part of the daily work: "It's embedded in everything we do now."
Advice For The Year Ahead
Asked what she would tell other talent leaders heading into 2027, Hancock does not hesitate for long.
"Be open to change," she says. "Change happens every single day."
She notes that the pace of the unknown has only accelerated since the pandemic, and that standing still carries its own risk.
"Be open, be curious," she adds. "In everything, be open."
It is advice she has clearly lived — from fashion design to onboarding, from healthcare to electrical distribution, from skeptic-free early AI advocacy to a role where the technology is simply part of the job.
And it is the through line of a career built on the belief that people, given a little faith and a lot of curiosity, will surprise you.
The Talent 100 exists to celebrate the people shaping the future of how the world hires, and few embody that better than Cat. We are honored to welcome Cat Almanzor Hancock to the Talent 100, Class of 2026, and grateful for the experience, perspective, and craft they bring to this community. Congratulations, Cat. Welcome to the Talent 100.
About the Talent 100
The Talent 100 is an annual list spotlighting the leaders who push HR and talent acquisition forward, organized by Noon AI. Honorees are selected through peer nominations and independent selection committees. Selection is entirely merit-based, with no fees or pay-to-play requirements.
