Jeff Greene

Learning to Set His Own Pace

Looking back, one of the most meaningful influences on Jeff’s career came from his grandfather. At one point, Jeff found himself moving quickly, saying yes to every opportunity, relocation, project, and stretch assignment in pursuit of growth. His grandfather encouraged him to pause and ask a more important question: what pace did he actually want to keep?

“Don’t let someone else pace you,” Jeff recalls. The advice became a guiding principle. He learned to ask whether his own pace matched the pace of the organization around him, and he found that sometimes it did and sometimes it did not. That kind of reflection helped him make more intentional career decisions, and it later became advice he shared with the people he mentored.

Leading People as Individuals

Another leadership lesson arrived from a different direction, in the form of a leader whose style helped Jeff understand the kind of leader he did not want to become. That leader often expected others to adjust to their approach, explaining it away with a familiar line: “That’s just who I am.”

The experience shaped a belief Jeff has carried ever since, which is that people are not fixed. They move through seasons in their lives and careers. Sometimes they want to feel challenged. Sometimes they want to feel successful and steady. Sometimes they want both at once. Rather than expecting every person to adapt to one leadership style, Jeff works to understand where each person is, what they need, and how to help them succeed.

That same mindset carries into recruiting. Candidates may communicate differently, show up differently, or need different things from the process. In Jeff’s view, none of that means they cannot contribute, thrive, or succeed.

How AI Is Changing Recruiting

Jeff sees AI reshaping the recruiting landscape most clearly in the way candidates find jobs and express interest. Recruiting has already evolved from traditional staffing to talent acquisition, and more recently toward talent attraction. Now AI is pushing the function into another phase entirely.

Candidates are no longer going only to career sites or job boards. Many are using AI tools to search for opportunities, match their resumes to roles, and even apply at scale. That shift changes the responsibility of recruiting teams, because it is no longer enough to write a job posting and wait. Recruiters have to think about how their roles show up in search results, how jobs are targeted, and how employment brand reaches the right people at the right time.

For Jeff, the trajectory is unmistakable. Recruiting has moved from a sales function to a consulting function, and now toward a marketing consulting function.

Advice for Talent Leaders Heading into 2026

Jeff’s advice for talent leaders is to focus on the moments that matter. Not every role, candidate population, or organization needs the same solution. Some hiring processes may benefit from speed, consistency, and automation, while others may call for a more personalized, concierge-style candidate experience. The key is understanding what matters most to the people being targeted.

He also cautions leaders against deploying AI simply because it is available. Talent leaders need informed opinions about where technology belongs, what outcomes it should support, and how it will change the process around it. “We can’t be too quick to deploy something into our existing process just because it seems like the cleanest solution,” he says.

At the same time, Jeff believes leaders cannot afford to wait for the perfect solution, because the pace of change is simply too fast. The better approach is to pilot, learn, adjust, and keep moving. By combining thoughtful leadership, candidate empathy, strategic talent attraction, and a practical approach to AI, he represents the kind of talent leader helping recruiting teams adapt to the future while staying grounded in what people need most.