Stacy Zapar
Tenfold
“This is so fun. It's like solving puzzles all day.”
Stacy Zapar 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 Stacy's story.
Stacy Zapar, Founder of Tenfold, took a temporary job making ten dollars an hour playing search-a-word on paper resumes at a staffing agency, never imagining it would become a nearly 30-year career.
It was the Y2K era, before resumes were really scannable and electronic, and the work was exactly as manual as it sounds. For Zapar, it was a way to pay the bills during a break from graduate school, nothing more. Her dream lay elsewhere: she planned to return to school and become a French professor.
Two months in, her boss approached her with an offer to become a recruiter. She politely declined. She had graduate school waiting, she explained, and besides, all 16 recruiters in the office seemed miserable. Her boss countered with a simple promise: try it, and if you hate it, your old job will be waiting.
She never needed the safety net. On the very first day, Zapar fell in love with the work. In her first week, she broke her first monthly goal. In her first three weeks, she broke her first quarterly goal. She shattered every record in front of her, and she kept recruiting at night while watching TV, not because anyone asked her to but because she could not put it down. "This is so fun," she remembers thinking. "It's like solving puzzles all day." She never looked back. That was almost 30 years ago.
Learning From Believers
Before the staffing agency came Enterprise Rent-A-Car, a training ground Zapar shares with many of the industry's most successful recruiters. Shannon Fitchett and Jeremy Roberts are among the big names who got their start there, and the pattern is no accident.
What Zapar remembers most from that chapter is a regional manager who believed in her and encouraged her in ways that still resonate decades later. Together, they took their branch from last place in all of North Carolina to first. They were selling damage waivers at 30 percent when the goal was 60; within three months, they had climbed from 30 to 60 to 90 percent. Before long, their branch was training everyone else. More than 30 years later, she still keeps in touch with him.
The Power of Encouragement
The pattern repeated at the staffing agency, where the owner, Don McLaren, invested in her, believed in her, and encouraged her to spread her wings in ways that shaped her trajectory. Two workplaces, two leaders who saw something in her before she saw it in herself. "Those people always stand out," she says of leaders who believe in others.
That belief eventually came full circle. Years later, while on maternity leave with her son, her husband suggested she start a training business. By then, the people who had believed in her had already taught her the lesson that mattered most: the power of encouragement.
The Talent 100 exists to celebrate the people shaping the future of how the world hires, and few embody that better than Stacy. We are honored to welcome Stacy Zapar to the Talent 100, Class of 2026, and grateful for the experience, perspective, and craft they bring to this community. Congratulations, Stacy. 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.
