Marcie Foxcroft

From South Africa to a British Household Name

Foxcroft was born and raised in South Africa, where her recruitment career began. She joined a recruitment agency early in her career and spent seven and a half years building expertise across banking and financial services. What started as an opportunity quickly became a profession she genuinely enjoyed and excelled at.

Looking to broaden her experience, she moved into an RPO environment, working onsite with major financial institutions and gaining valuable insight into how organisations attract and retain talent from within.

Her move to the UK opened the door to a series of in-house leadership roles. She went on to lead talent acquisition functions at Fidelity Worldwide Investment and AXA, building extensive experience across global, highly regulated organisations. During this time, she developed a strong understanding of how talent strategy can support business performance, organisational growth and employee experience.

Keen to move into the technology sector, Foxcroft later joined Trustpilot as Global Head of Talent Acquisition. The move reflected a desire to work in a fast-paced, innovation-led environment and to further develop her leadership approach within a scaling technology business.

Two years ago, she joined Rightmove. The move combined several things that mattered deeply to her: technology, consumer impact and purpose. As a brand connected to one of the most significant decisions many people make in their lives, finding a home, it offered an opportunity to connect customer experience, employee experience and talent strategy in a meaningful way.

Throughout her career, Foxcroft has led talent transformation initiatives, built and developed high-performing recruitment teams, introduced new technologies and processes, and helped organisations strengthen the connection between employer brand, candidate experience and employee engagement.

The Managers Who Helped Shape the Leader

Ask Foxcroft about her career and she is quick to credit the people who invested in her along the way.

She speaks openly about the influence of leaders such as Jennie Barker, her current manager and former leader at Trustpilot, alongside Nicola Green at AXA and Liz Driscoll at Fidelity. She also credits leaders from her agency days, describing herself as fortunate to have worked with people who consistently challenged and supported her in equal measure.

The common thread was not just opportunity, but trust. Each leader created an environment where she could learn, take ownership, bring her authentic self to work and continue growing.

Foxcroft is clear that her career has been shaped by the investment others made in her development. The experience has fundamentally influenced how she leads today and reinforced her belief that great organisations do more than promise growth. They create the conditions that make it possible.

Embracing AI Without Losing the Human Connection

Foxcroft is an enthusiastic advocate for AI and its potential to transform talent acquisition.

She believes the rapid evolution of AI presents significant opportunities for hiring teams to become more efficient, more strategic and more effective. For her, the value lies in removing low-value administrative work and creating more space for human interaction where it matters most.

What she is not willing to compromise on is candidate experience.

Foxcroft's view is simple: every candidate is a potential customer, advocate or future employee. The recruitment process is often one of the most visible expressions of a company's brand, making candidate experience a commercial as well as a talent priority.

The challenge, as she sees it, is making technology work in service of people rather than replacing meaningful human interaction.

"We live in a world of personalisation of one," she says. "People want to feel seen as individuals. If AI can take away repetitive tasks, it gives us more time to focus on what humans do best: building relationships, understanding motivations and helping people make important career decisions."

For Foxcroft, the future role of talent professionals is not about doing more activity faster. It is about creating more value. She believes recruiters should spend less time on administration and more time acting as trusted advisers to candidates, hiring managers and the business.

Getting Off the Hamster Wheel

As a member of the RL100 network of talent leaders, Foxcroft spends a great deal of time considering the future of the profession. While she recognises that every industry faces different challenges, there are several principles she believes apply universally.

First, embrace AI rather than fear it.

Second, never lose sight of the people behind the process.

And third, make time to think strategically.

That final point is one she delivers with conviction.

As a leader, she argues, the work is never truly finished. There will always be another priority, another challenge and another item on the to-do list. Waiting for a quieter period to think strategically is often an unrealistic expectation.

Instead, she believes leaders must deliberately create space to step back, understand the broader landscape and look ahead.

The organisations and leaders that thrive, she suggests, are often those who balance execution with perspective.

It is a philosophy reflected throughout her own career. From agency recruitment to global talent leadership, from financial services to technology, and from hiring to employee engagement, each step has broadened her perspective on what great talent leadership looks like. Her career reflects many of the qualities the Talent 100 celebrates: a commitment to candidate experience, a willingness to embrace innovation, a belief in authentic leadership, and a clear understanding that talent acquisition has a direct impact on business success.