Will Bronaugh

Turning Talent Acquisition Into a Strategic Engine

As Vice President, Global Talent Acquisition at Nutanix, Will leads an organization in the middle of an important shift. When he joined, he saw an opportunity to move the function from something more reactive and transactional into a strategic engine for the business. That has meant building out a strong leadership team, putting real process in place, and modernizing the tools recruiters rely on day to day. He thinks of the work as up leveling how the company sees TA: not as a back office service, but as a core partner that helps the business hit its goals.

What energizes him most is the next chapter of that transformation. Will is focused on getting out in front of the business and telling a clear story about where TA was, where it is now, and where it is going over the next several years. He spends time with leaders across the company showing how better hiring in sales directly supports revenue, how strong hiring in product and engineering strengthens the roadmap, and how thoughtful talent strategy can accelerate business outcomes. For him, that connection is the entire point. Recruiting has real impact when it is tied tightly to how the company grows.

Where AI Fits In

He is also genuinely excited about what AI can do for the profession. Will has watched a wave of new tools and vendors come into the market, many of them aimed directly at TA. There is hype, certainly, but there is also real opportunity. The part that excites him is not flashy features; it is the chance to remove repetitive, administrative work so recruiters can spend more time with hiring leaders and candidates. In his view, the heart of this job is relationship building, and anything that helps free up more time for that work is a win.

Lessons From a Volatile Market

At the same time, he has a clear eyed view of how challenging the past few years have been for the recruiting community. He remembers the COVID era boom, when nearly every company was hiring and there were more recruiter roles on LinkedIn than software engineering jobs. It was, as he puts it, a golden age for recruiters. Then the pendulum swung. Layoffs, pulled back growth plans, and long searches for new roles became common, and many experienced recruiters took jobs that did not match the level or scope of their previous positions. The market is improving, but the lesson is lasting: conditions can change quickly, and TA leaders have to be ready.

Through all of it, Will keeps his focus on agility, impact, and the future of the function. He wants teams to embrace AI rather than fear it. He pushes leaders to tie their work to concrete business outcomes. And he keeps reminding people that the work of recruiting is still about helping organizations grow and helping people move into roles that can change their lives.

Will's Advice for 2026

Stay agile in shifting markets. The balance between employer driven and candidate driven markets can swing very fast, so TA leaders should be ready to adjust staffing models, processes, and candidate engagement strategies quickly. Waiting for perfect certainty is not an option. Build plans that can flex as conditions change.

Make AI a normal part of work. Will does not believe you need to buy every AI tool on the market; he encourages leaders to start simple. Use products like ChatGPT, experiment with agentic tools, automate small transactional tasks, and get your team comfortable trying things even when some experiments fail. AI is not going away, and teams that embrace it will be more effective and more marketable.

Tie recruiting to real business outcomes. Traditional TA metrics still matter, but they are not the full story. Time to fill and offer acceptance rates are diagnostic; the business cares more about how recruiting drives revenue, supports product delivery, and enables long term strategy. Will urges leaders to show exactly how their hiring plans connect to those outcomes. If TA cannot make that connection, it risks being seen as a cost center that AI can replace rather than a strategic partner the business cannot do without.

Will's career has tracked the evolution of recruiting over thirty years, from a function that was often purely reactive to one that can sit at the center of business strategy. His message to other leaders is simple: stay flexible, lean into new tools, and always link your work back to the outcomes that matter most to the business.