Dan Riccio
SingleStore
“We may not always get the credit in HR, but we get the chance to truly impact people's lives. That's what keeps me in it.”
Dan Riccio has been named to the Talent 100, Class of 2026, the annual award recognizing up to 100 leaders in each category of talent acquisition. Honorees are nominated by peers or found by committees that look for excellent work wherever it happens, then chosen for the depth of their craft and their impact on hiring. This is Dan's story.
Dan Riccio, Director, Talent Acquisition at SingleStore, built a career at the intersection of people and systems long before that combination became standard practice in HR.
The groundwork was laid at SUNY Albany, where he earned an MBA in a program that blended Human Resources and Information Systems, an uncommon pairing at the time. Many of his classmates gravitated toward the technical side of that equation. Riccio was pulled in the other direction, toward training, leadership, and the human impact of business decisions.
His early career unfolded in operational leadership roles across warehouse and distribution environments, and it was there that he encountered a truth simple enough to state in a sentence and powerful enough to organize a career around: hiring the right people changed everything. By standardizing hiring practices and aligning them with what the business actually needed, he became a top-performing district manager. The lesson stuck, and it pointed him toward HR full-time, where his first formal recruiting role came at Price Chopper, a major Northeastern supermarket chain. He never looked back.
Decades later, the relationships have outlasted the roles. Riccio has stayed in touch with interns and early-career hires he supported years ago, many of whom are now senior leaders in their own right, and he counts those long-running connections among the most meaningful parts of his career. “We may not always get the credit in HR,” he says, “but we get the chance to truly impact people’s lives. That’s what keeps me in it.”
What Energizes Him Most
What drives Riccio is the transformative power of the right hire. He often joins organizations during periods of challenge or change, at moments when teams are not yet operating at full strength, and his work centers on aligning talent acquisition with business strategy and rebuilding positive momentum from there.
“If I bring in the wrong people, I can hurt a business,” he explains. “But if I bring in the right people with the right energy, we can transform an organization.”
He is unusually clear-eyed about the stakes on both sides of the table. Recruiting, as he sees it, sits at the center of a major life decision: candidates are trusting recruiters with their careers, their finances, their families, and their futures, while companies are trusting those same recruiters to shape culture, performance, and long-term success. That responsibility, he says, is both humbling and motivating.
How Talent Acquisition Has Evolved
Riccio has been recruiting since the era of paper resumes and newspaper job postings, which means he has watched the profession move through every stage of its evolution, from the first job boards to LinkedIn to today's AI-powered tools. Technology has expanded speed and reach dramatically. It has also, in his view, introduced a new and less convenient problem: authenticity.
“Today, resumes can be written by AI. Interview answers can be generated by AI,” he says. “It’s harder to know what’s truly coming from the person.”
The conclusion he draws is not a retreat from technology but a renewed emphasis on everything technology cannot replicate. Conversation, intuition, and relationship-building matter more now, not less. Riccio treats AI as a tool rather than a replacement; efficiency is worth having, but genuine connection is still what produces the best hiring decisions.
Advice for 2026
As the industry keeps shifting, Riccio's counsel to fellow talent leaders is to double down on transparency and authenticity. The advice is simple, and its timing is deliberate: be honest, set clear expectations, and prioritize real conversations over perfectly polished ones. In an era when technology can generate a flawless response on demand, being genuine is what stands out.
“Go back to being real with people,” he says. “That’s what builds trust, and trust is what great hiring is built on.”
The future of talent acquisition, in his telling, is not a choice between technology and people. It is a matter of using the tools wisely while staying grounded in the human relationships that have always sat at the heart of recruiting.
The Talent 100 exists to celebrate the people shaping the future of how the world hires, and few embody that better than Dan. We are honored to welcome Dan Riccio to the Talent 100, Class of 2026, and grateful for the experience, perspective, and craft they bring to this community. Congratulations, Dan. 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.
