David Windley
Executive Chairman & CEO
AI, HRTech, Saas
Silicon Valley, CA, USA
Listen to David’s Podcast!
David Windley is the CEO and Executive Chairman of HootRecruit, an AI-powered talent sourcing platform that is transforming how recruiters find and engage the right candidates. HootRecruit aims to fundamentally change the recruiting process by creating an AI agent for candidate sourcing, focusing on enhancing human expertise rather than replacing it. HootRecruit’s proprietary full agentic AI platform can instantly parse job descriptions, discover qualified candidates from public profiles, and provide detailed assessment scoring. Clients leveraging the platform experience results like 4x faster hiring and spend 95% less time on manual sourcing activities. HootRecruit was recognized as Nashville Technology Council’s Tech Start-Up of the Year in 2024.
David Windley is positioned as a former CHRO turned founder who bridges corporate leadership and entrepreneurial innovation. He has extensive experience spanning over 30 years as an HR leader in Corporate America, having served as the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) at Yahoo! and Fusion.io. He also held executive roles at Microsoft.
After his corporate leadership tenure, he founded IQTalent Partners, successfully scaling it into a $50 million talent acquisition company before its acquisition by Caldwell Partners International. This entrepreneurial experience led to the pivot toward HootRecruit, a technology-first platform that democratizes access to high-quality candidate sourcing.
His core expertise lies in AI-powered hiring that prioritizes diversity and ethical practices. He emphasizes a “human in the loop” design in AI applications to maintain trust and mitigate potential bias, ensuring the user ultimately makes the hiring decision based on information provided by the AI.
In addition to his operating roles, David Windley currently serves as a Board Director for Dice Holdings Group, AARP, Tennant Company, and Power to Fly. He previously held the position of Board Chair for the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM), which represents over 300,000 HR professionals. Throughout his career, he has advocated for flexible policies, promoting a work-from-anywhere culture and measuring employees on objectives and results rather than input or time in the office, which he frames as work-life integration.
David Windley is also featured on our premiere Features Page, and you can read the Podcast Interview Transcript.
