Matt Quinn-Johnston
Morgan Sindall Infrastructure
“Culture is more important than numbers in a lot of situations. The right person can completely change expectations and broaden the way an organization thinks.”
Matt Quinn-Johnston 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 Matt's story.
Some talent careers begin with a plan, and others begin with a piece of feedback delivered at exactly the right moment. For Matt Quinn-Johnston, Senior Resource Manager at Morgan Sindall Infrastructure, it was the second kind: a teenager set on engineering who kept hearing, politely and repeatedly, that his real strengths pointed somewhere else.
As a teenager, Matt planned to become an engineer. He pursued engineering apprenticeships, sat through assessment centers, and interviewed for technical roles, and the verdict was consistently warm and consistently redirected. Interviewers liked what they saw. They simply saw a different job. “The feedback was always great,” Matt recalls. “But they could see me in a people role rather than being a welder or doing CAD drawings.”
That observation changed the direction of his career. Instead of engineering, Matt entered a business and HR apprenticeship focused on helping organizations hire apprentices and build future workforces. It was his first introduction to talent acquisition, and the shape of the work was clear from the start: connecting candidates with opportunities, and employers with the talent they needed.
From there, the map widened quickly. His career has since spanned agency recruitment and in-house talent acquisition across retail, education, health and social care, experiential travel, and the highly specialized world of nuclear decommissioning. Today he brings more than a decade of talent acquisition experience gathered across industries where hiring the right people can have a lasting impact on business performance and organizational culture.
Learning From Great Talent Leaders
Ask Matt how he built his approach to talent acquisition and the answer arrives in the form of names. Throughout his career, he has been shaped by leaders who modeled the craft rather than simply describing it.
One of those leaders is Natasha Harris, a global talent acquisition executive who demonstrated the power of building strong professional networks. “She would walk into candidate briefing meetings and already know several people who could potentially fit the role,” Matt says. “It really showed me the value of building and maintaining relationships throughout your career.”
Another influential leader was Cherie Jenkinson, who introduced him to his first true in-house talent acquisition role in residential children's care. Working in a high-volume assessment center environment, Matt learned that speed and scale are only as good as the discipline underneath them. “She taught me the basics and how to do them properly,” he says. “Candidate experience starts with getting those fundamentals right.”
A third key influence was Laura Dungar, whom Matt worked alongside during a major hiring transformation project in the UK's nuclear sector. The organization had spent nearly a decade with limited hiring activity before being tasked with bringing in approximately 500 new employees, and the two of them helped build a talent acquisition function from the ground up. “We built the team, implemented a new ATS, introduced new processes, and created the candidate experience from scratch,” Matt says. “It was one of the most demanding but rewarding experiences of my career.”
Making AI Meaningful
As artificial intelligence continues reshaping talent acquisition, Matt believes the industry is still in the early stages of understanding what it can actually do. Plenty of organizations are experimenting, but he draws a sharp line between using AI as a novelty and using it to create meaningful value. “It's a lot faster than it used to be,” he says. “But I don't think we're using it to its full potential yet.”
For Matt, the real opportunity sits at the intersection of recruiter efficiency and candidate experience. With many organizations receiving thousands of applications for individual positions, recruiters often struggle to provide personalized communication and timely feedback, and he sees AI as a credible answer to that bottleneck. “If we're using AI correctly, we can provide more meaningful communication to candidates, improve the experience, and make the process more efficient for employers,” he explains.
He is equally clear about where the technology stops adding value. Leaning on generic AI-generated content, using it to churn out job advertisements or automate messaging without improving what the candidate actually receives, misses the point entirely. “The true value comes when people are educated on how to use it effectively,” he says.
The Impact of Great Hiring
What energizes Matt most today is the long tail of a hiring decision: what a single appointment does to an organization months and years after the offer is signed. It might be a sales professional who quickly drives business results, or a senior leader capable of transforming an organization's culture. In either case, he finds purpose in connecting the right people with the right opportunities.
“Culture is more important than numbers in a lot of situations,” he says. “The right person can completely change expectations and broaden the way an organization thinks.” That belief is what separates great talent acquisition from vacancy management in his view. The work is not simply about filling roles; it is about helping organizations evolve, grow, and create environments where people can thrive.
Advice for Talent Leaders Heading Into 2026
As talent acquisition continues to evolve alongside AI, automation, and changing workforce expectations, Matt encourages leaders to stay curious and proactive rather than waiting for the dust to settle. “The people who will be left behind are the people who aren't using it,” he says.
But technology alone is not the strategy. Success, in his reading, will come from combining innovation with human connection: leveraging AI to improve efficiency while protecting the relationships, trust, and judgment that remain at the heart of recruiting. By embracing change while staying focused on people, Matt Quinn-Johnston represents the kind of talent leader helping shape the future of recruitment across industries and borders.
The Talent 100 exists to celebrate the people shaping the future of how the world hires, and few embody that better than Matt. We are honored to welcome Matt Quinn-Johnston to the Talent 100, Class of 2026, and grateful for the experience, perspective, and craft they bring to this community. Congratulations, Matt. 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.
