Paul Sanford
Epitec
“AI is here. I don't think you can be afraid of it; I think you have to embrace it.”
Paul Sanford has been named to the Talent 100, Class of 2026, the annual award recognizing up to 100 of the most exceptional leaders and practitioners in each category of 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 Paul's story.
Paul Sanford went to Boston expecting to talk about a pharmaceutical sales job. The headhunter across the table had met someone in recruiting the night before, and the conversation turned. Sanford was hired as a recruiter for a company in Boston, and thirty years later holds the title of Head of Recruiting Operations at Epitec.
The current seat came by way of consolidation: Epitec acquired TalentBurst, where Sanford had been working before the deal. What carried over was a conviction formed at both organizations, that artificial intelligence belongs at the front of the operating model rather than in a pilot folder somewhere. At TalentBurst and now at Epitec, Sanford says, AI has been in the forefront. In this case that is a description of how requisitions actually get worked, not a slogan.
Thirty Years, Five Rungs
The career began in higher education. Sanford started out as an international recruiter for a university in Rhode Island, then went looking for a role with stronger earning potential, which is what produced the Boston meeting. From that first Boston role, the progression was steady and traceable: recruiter, then recruiting lead, then director of recruiting, then vice president, then senior vice president of recruiting, over a span of thirty years.
The company names along the way map the consolidation of the staffing and integration industries. Sanford worked at Pinkerton Computer Consultants, which was acquired by Kforce. Then came NTT DATA, described by Sanford as one of the largest integrators in the world, with 300,000 employees. As vice president of recruiting there, the remit covered the United States, Canada, India, and London in the UK.
The Discipline Underneath the Titles
Asked to account for the trajectory, Sanford does not reach for a methodology or a technology stack. The answer is upbringing and work ethic. Two capabilities get named specifically: the ability to self-motivate and the ability to hold oneself accountable. Sanford calls them key components of whatever success has followed.
It is a notably unglamorous explanation from someone who has run recruiting across four countries, and it is worth taking seriously. Recruiting is a profession with very little external structure to lean on. Nobody assigns the day, and the pipeline does not fill itself because a manager wished it would.
Agentic AI, Already in Production
Sanford is blunt about the state of adoption: there are still companies out there not embracing AI, and fear is the likeliest reason. That is not the posture at Epitec. Sanford has worked directly with an AI platform built around a virtual language bot, an agentic system that searches for candidates, talks to them, engages them, and submits them. Human recruiters take over at the point an interview request comes in.
The second layer sits inside the applicant tracking system itself. Sanford cites Copilot within the ATS, paired with automation, as the practical route to streamlining process and increasing the productivity of the team. Read together, the two layers describe a clear division of labor: machines carry volume and administrative motion, recruiters carry judgment and the human conversation.
Sanford's summary of the whole debate is short. AI is here. Being afraid of it is not a strategy.
Advice for 2026
For other talent leaders heading into the next cycle, Sanford offers one instruction, and it is deliberately narrow: brace, and hold your clients in the palm of your hand.
In a market where technology can now generate outreach at scale, the scarce asset is not candidate volume. It is the client relationship that survives a slow quarter or a budget freeze. Sanford has spent thirty years watching companies get acquired, integrated, and renamed around those relationships.
The Talent 100 exists to celebrate the people shaping the future of how the world hires, and few embody that better than Paul. We are honored to welcome Paul Sanford to the Talent 100, Class of 2026, and grateful for the experience, perspective, and craft they bring to this community. Congratulations, Paul. 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.