Stephen Childs
Panasonic Automotive
“There are so many free courses available. There is zero excuse.”
Stephen Childs has been named to the Talent 100, Class of 2026, the annual award recognizing up to 100 leaders in each category of talent acquisition. Honorees are nominated by peers or found by committees that look for excellent work wherever it happens, then chosen for the depth of their craft and their impact on hiring. This is Stephen's story.
For Stephen Childs, CHRO/VP Human Resources at Panasonic Automotive, a career in people leadership began with entrepreneurship.
He studied finance, but his first professional step was starting his own employment services company, and at the time he did not think of it as an HR career at all. He was building a business. In practice, though, nearly everything the work required touched human resources. He hired people and managed placements, handled payroll, coordinated drug tests and background checks, managed workers’ compensation, and supported hundreds of employees across dozens of businesses. “At one point, I had about 300 people across roughly 30 different businesses,” Stephen recalls.
By the time he sold that company and continued working in the employment services space, he could see what he had quietly assembled: a deep foundation in talent, operations, and people leadership, built without ever having planned for it. “My first job just happened to be in HR,” he says.
Leading with an Entrepreneurial Mindset
That entrepreneurial beginning still shapes the way Stephen approaches leadership. Where many HR leaders are naturally risk-averse, he has always been comfortable stepping into uncertainty, and that comfort became one of the defining factors in his career growth. “I call it the saying yes factor,” he says.
When new opportunities surfaced, Stephen tended to raise his hand, even when the work was unfamiliar, trusting himself to learn, adapt, and figure things out along the way. That willingness to take on new challenges is what carried him beyond talent acquisition into broader HR and, eventually, executive leadership. Entrepreneurship had already taught him that risk is often part of growth. Having started, grown, and sold a company, he came away believing that most challenges can be solved with curiosity, effort, and the willingness to move forward.
Preparing for the AI Era
As HR and talent acquisition continue to evolve, Stephen believes leaders have to take ownership of their own learning, and nowhere more urgently than with AI. He sees talent acquisition professionals as some of the most tech-savvy people in HR, precisely because the function has long been shaped by emerging tools, from job boards to LinkedIn to modern recruitment platforms. AI, in his view, is simply the next major shift.
His advice is blunt: do not wait for your company to train you. “There are so many free courses available,” he says. “There is zero excuse.” He encourages people leaders and talent professionals to invest both work time and personal time in understanding AI, experimenting with the tools, and building fluency before the market forces them to catch up. “If you wait for the company to do it, you’re going to be far behind,” he says.
The future of recruiting, as Stephen sees it, will require talent acquisition professionals to become AI-enabled facilitators of hiring. Technology will keep changing the work, and the leaders who learn and adapt proactively will be the ones best positioned to lead through that change.
Advice for Leaders Heading into 2026
Stephen believes the next phase of people leadership will belong to those who combine business thinking, technological curiosity, and the courage to take risks. The tools will change, the expectations will evolve, and the pace will only increase. The leaders who stay curious, invest in themselves, and think beyond traditional functional boundaries will keep creating meaningful impact.
By pairing entrepreneurial courage and business-first thinking with a forward-looking approach to technology, Stephen Childs represents the kind of people leader prepared to help organizations navigate what comes next.
The Talent 100 exists to celebrate the people shaping the future of how the world hires, and few embody that better than Stephen. We are honored to welcome Stephen Childs to the Talent 100, Class of 2026, and grateful for the experience, perspective, and craft they bring to this community. Congratulations, Stephen. 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.
