Keynotes & workshops
Speaking
I talk about what it actually takes to build a recruiting function — not hiring hacks, not culture platitudes. Practical, specific, drawn from 20 years of doing the work and 10 building talent teams inside startups.
Talks
What I speak about
The Signal Economy
Why your recruiting function is a data problem
Every hiring decision runs on signal — and most teams generate almost none of it on purpose. What signal is, where it comes from, and how the teams that manufacture it deliberately out-hire everyone else.
Zero to One
Building a recruiting function that survives hypergrowth
The build order for standing up recruiting from nothing: what to put in place first, what to defer, and the sequencing mistakes that cause the whole thing to collapse the first time hiring spikes.
The Fractional Decision
When to embed, when to hire, when to outsource
A clear framework for the build-vs-buy-vs-borrow question in talent. When fractional leadership is the right call, when it isn't, and what to ask before you commit to any of the three.
AI-Native Recruiting
What to automate and what to never hand off
Where AI genuinely earns its place in the hiring process, where it quietly does damage, and the line between the work you systematize and the judgment that has to stay human.
Formats
How I show up
Keynote
30–45 minutes. One argument, delivered with specifics and stories from real builds.
Workshop
90 minutes, interactive. Teams leave with a working draft of their own hiring plan or build order.
Podcast guest
Candid, unscripted conversation on talent, hiring, and building functions that last.
Panel
Founder, talent, and operator panels — I bring the operator's blunt view, not the vendor pitch.
Who I speak to
Founder communities, accelerators and startup cohorts, VC talent networks, and HR/talent conferences. Rooms where people are actually building or advising companies — not looking for motivational filler.
For event organizers
Jamie K is a fractional talent leader with 20 years in recruiting, the last decade building and running embedded recruiting functions inside high-growth startups. She founded Handoff to give Series A–C companies a real hiring engine — built, run, and handed back to their team.
Short and long speaker bios, headshots, and a one-sheet available on request.