Danielle Mathis
Rocklin Management Advisors
“People create the fabric of a culture.”
Danielle Mathis 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 Danielle's story.
Danielle Mathis didn't set out to become a recruiter. She became one because the market crashed and she saw an opportunity to connect companies with students who needed internships. She graduated in 2008, straight into the downturn, and while working in marketing with her degree she spotted a gap: companies needed horsepower, and students needed opportunities. So she built the bridge herself, launching Epic Interns to connect the two, a business she eventually sold.
Years later, after her marketing role was offshored to Germany and she declined the move, she found herself asking what she wanted to be when she grew up. The answer was clear. She was a natural connector. People called her constantly, about jobs, about problems, about everything. She had connected people who got married, people who found jobs, people who found plumbers. It became a running joke.
So she made a plan: join the best recruiting agency, learn how they did it, then start her own. She cold emailed the CEO of a boutique firm that placed C-level and board members in sales, marketing, and operations, told him she would be a great marketing candidate, then told him what she actually wanted was to come in at the ground level and learn the business. Nobody says that, he replied. He also told her she would need to take a 50 percent pay cut. She said yes.
The bet compounded. She grew her own practice at the firm, took on a leadership role, and eventually became a partner, which put her inside every cool organization at a pivotal growth point, Alteryx, HubSpot, and more, placing their C-level executives and board members.
The Move In-House
Then Mathis decided she needed to round herself out. There was no reason to leave. She was, in her words, fat and happy, and agencies were overflowing with work. But she kept hearing about a company called Clari. She spoke with the CEO and the executive staff, and she knew this was the one she would go in-house for.
From there she grew the recruiting practice globally, across India, Poland, the UK, and Canada. It was a beautiful journey. She was eventually given HR as well, an expansion that matched her conviction that the HRBP world and the talent world needed to be married. The two have to work together, she argues, to make sure organizations are hiring what they need to hire, best in class.
About 18 months ago, she started an advisory practice, helping AI organizations grow their talent and coming in as a fractional CPO to help them build out what's next. She has since become Principal and Owner at Rocklin Management Advisors. Talent is the most important thing, she says, and as a founder or head of TA, you need to be spending your time really understanding this landscape. The market has swung back to a place where talent is absolutely hard to find, which means it comes down to relationships yet again. A full circle moment. She is working with a ton of different people in a ton of different sectors, and it has been super fun.
Learning From Great Leaders
Three people come to mind when Mathis thinks about impact. The first is Ken Schmidt at Ascentria Partners, who gave her her first shot. He gave her enough rope to figure things out but was there when she needed him, which was really valuable early in her career and even more so as she grew as a leader, because he challenged her to make sure she understood leadership basics. Leadership, she believes, is a practice. If you are not growing in that, how is anybody supposed to be successful underneath you?
The second is Laura McKinnon, her previous CPO at Clari, who gave her autonomy and gave her a seat at the table. That combination was helpful and impactful, letting her lean in and take on things that were a total stretch and knock them out of the park, with McKinnon there as a champion.
The third person actually reported to her. Her name was Nina. Mathis saw something in her, knew she had it, and knew how much potential she had to grow. The aptitude to feedback and the ability to lean into wanting to move forward in a leadership journey was so great. Mathis has been able to grow and promote so many people in their careers, and she is clear that advancement is earned and worked toward, not something that should be given just for time in seat. That has been the coolest part of her journey, probably her most favorite part. She jokes that she is going to work for them one day.
AI as Assistant, Not Replacement
Mathis frames the current moment simply: we have come from being creators to being editors, and understanding that is key. This is probably the most transformative thing we have seen since the internet, and for those who have been around for Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, it is yet another transformation. Those transformations can feel scary, like growth within anything. You have to learn something new on top of what you are already doing, and that can feel arduous. The best way to look at it, she says, is as an assistant. It does not need to be looked at as something that is going to take your job. That is easy to say and hard to do, because it requires leading with curiosity and using it as a tool. The calculator came along and it did not upend accountants. What it did do was create more efficiency so they could spend their time doing more important work.
Nobody loves writing job descriptions. That is not the favorite part of any recruiter's job, and neither is entering things into the ATS a certain way. If you can create a workflow that handles some of those things, rad, now you do not have to do that anymore. But what are you going to do with that time? For Mathis, that is the most pivotal question, because it is no longer about writing the best InMail. There are 10,000 InMails everyone is getting every day, and half the people are regretful of the LinkedIn inbox at the moment. So what can we be doing? Creating moments that matter, and relationships. When talent is this hard to find, if she can pick up her phone and call the head of data science at her previous organization to say she has a company hiring a few data scientists, that is how you get top talent.
The rest is being a steward of your craft. Get involved in certain groups that other people are not. If you are an engineering recruiter, you better be reading and keeping up on what is the best part of that business that you are there to represent. If you are in GTM, are you going to their QBRs? Are you going to different events that keep you relevant in that talent base? Because the best recruiters are. Think about executive recruiting, she says, because that is the way everybody should be looking at their talent function, as an executive recruiting firm inside of an organization. That is the way she has always run it, and it works beautifully.
It comes full circle to a white glove experience for the candidate. People remember how they are treated on the way in and on the way out of an organization. They will remember the middle too, but those are the anchors, and the first person they talk to is the recruiter. Every founder, everybody better be listening, because that is arguably the most important. Without the people, there is no fabric of a culture.
Advice for the Next Generation
Her advice returns to the same theme: "People create the fabric of a culture". So take every call. Be a steward of your craft. Connect. Because that will come full circle for you. Mathis had somebody reach out to her that she had not talked to in 15 years, because they remembered that she was the best recruiter they had ever spoken with 15 years ago.
At the end of the day, she got into this because she just wanted to help people. She was a connector. She just wanted to help somebody, and she does not care if you are an individual contributor or just graduating. If you get into this because that is what you want to do, and ultimately, yes, it is a sale, look at sales folks. The reason they get into it and are really great at what they do is because they are trying to solve a problem for the other side. They are trying to help them win.
Keep that in your mind, she says, and the rest follows, whether you are in management trying to instill the leadership qualities you are hoping people will carry with them, or you are walking into a tough conversation. Come into the mindset of helping people win. And she has one more sound bite: lead with curiosity.
The Talent 100 exists to celebrate the people shaping the future of how the world hires, and few embody that better than Danielle. We are honored to welcome Danielle Mathis to the Talent 100, Class of 2026, and grateful for the experience, perspective, and craft they bring to this community. Congratulations, Danielle. 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.
