Bullhorn Names Chief Innovation and Labs Officer and Chief Corporate Development Officer
July 1, 2026 – Recruiting software provider Bullhorn recently appointed Jason Heilman as chief innovation and labs officer and Ryan Murphy as chief corporate development officer. As members of the executive leadership team, they will help drive the company’s next wave of growth and innovation.
Mr. Heilman joined Bullhorn in 2020 when the company acquired Herefish, the automation platform he led as CEO, in what became the most successful acquisition in Bullhorn’s history. Since joining, he has grown Bullhorn Automation more than 25x and most recently led the development and launch of Bullhorn Amplify, the company’s next-generation AI solution.
In addition to Bullhorn Amplify, in his new role, Mr. Heilman will lead Bullhorn Labs, the company’s dedicated innovation hub focused on incubating and scaling new technology offerings. He will focus on long-term, strategic market opportunities while continuing to serve as one of Bullhorn’s most prominent voices with customers on product vision and roadmap.
“Jason turned an acquisition into one of the most important growth engines in our company’s history, and then he did it again with Bullhorn Amplify,” said Art Papas, founder and CEO of Bullhorn. “He has a rare ability to see where the market is headed and build products that get there first.”
Mr. Murphy joined Bullhorn in 2006 and over his tenure has led the company’s largest and most strategic customer engagements, building enterprise sales into a cornerstone of Bullhorn’s growth.
“Ryan is one of the most trusted leaders in this company and the industry,” said Mr. Papas. “He spent nearly 20 years building our enterprise business on relationships, and that is the foundation of great corporate development. He knows how to earn trust, navigate complexity and deliver results. That’s exactly what this role demands.”
Acquisitions have been central to Bullhorn’s growth, with more than 15 completed to date across five countries. Mr. Murphy’s track record of building long-term relationships and structuring complex, multi-stakeholder agreements positions him to lead this next phase of the company’s expansion.
Related: Bullhorn Makes Third Acquisition this Year with the Addition of KonaSearch
For the past 25 years, Bullhorn has dedicated itself to building industry-leading, cloud-based software for the recruitment industry. Through partnerships with 10,000 customers globally, Bullhorn has built a vast knowledge base of recruitment best practices and deep domain expertise to help firms scale their businesses. Founder-led and headquartered in Boston, Bullhorn employs 1,400 people across 14 countries.
Recent Launch
Earlier this year, Bullhorn has launched Bullhorn Insights, a new research and data site designed to provide near real-time visibility into labor market trends. “Temporary labor has always been a leading indicator for the employment market, contracting one to two quarters prior to contractions in the broader employment market,” the company said in a release. “Similarly, recruitment and temporary employment expand rapidly ahead of jobs growth. Therefore, Bullhorn’s comprehensive visibility into millions of proprietary hiring and placement data points allows it to identify emerging patterns in hiring behaviors and workforce demand well before they appear in government reports or broader economic data.”
Bullhorn Acquires TargetRecruit
Bullhorn has acquired TargetRecruit, a Houston-based provider of front-and middle-office solutions built on the Salesforce platform. The acquisition deepens Bullhorn’s strategic investment in supporting firms that run their business on Salesforce and bolsters its position as the leading recruitment ISV in the Salesforce ecosystem. With the addition of TargetRecruit, Bullhorn’s Salesforce user base grows to nearly 150,000. The acquisition strengthens Bullhorn’s presence in the healthcare staffing market, particularly in locums and per diem.
Building on Bullhorn’s highly regarded Global Recruitment Insights & Data (GRID) research, Bullhorn Insights now offers new data on the United Kingdom and Ireland (UK&I) recruitment and labor markets, all based on aggregated and anonymized data
Bullhorn’s new features includes:
- Hiring Outlook – Recruitment and hiring metrics highlighting employer confidence, fill rates and hiring selectivity across sectors. The vast size and variety of Bullhorn’s customer base give unmatched visibility into changes in hiring behavior.
- Job Market Trends – Provides a forward-looking view of U.K. job openings by industry, role, skill set and compensation level by accessing millions of data points through its proprietary software.
- GRID (Global Recruitment Insights & Data) – A long-running, annual analysis that includes data collected from thousands of staffing leaders, highlighting evolving business priorities and workforce expectations.
Related: Bullhorn Extends Partnership with ManpowerGroup
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief and Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
