Bullhorn Names Senior Leadership Appointments
April 15, 2021 – Bullhorn, a provider of software to recruiting firms, has added David Whitley to its senior leadership team as chief technology officer, reporting to Matt Fischer, who has taken on the role of president and chief operating officer. “I am looking forward to working with David as I take on the COO role,” said Mr. Fischer. “David takes a very rational approach to software engineering and delivery. He builds technology to meet customer needs – whether large or small – instead of just building tech for tech’s sake. He’s also a master of integrating technology organizations from acquired companies, not just integrating R&D operations, but also people and company cultures to create a unified front,” he said. “This unique combination of technology leadership and forward-looking business acumen is exactly what Bullhorn needs at this stage of our journey.”
As the Bullhorn continues to expand, the executive team has similarly evolved to meet growing customer demand and to optimize internal operations. In addition to his existing role of president, as COO, Mr. Fischer will be focused on accelerating the company’s growth and scale to serve customer needs globally.
The R&D, Bullhorn technical operations, product development, and global technical services organizations will all report to Mr. Whitley, who in turn will report directly to Mr. Fischer. Combining the teams that manage customer implementations with the teams that manage development and delivery is an example of Bullhorn’s commitment to customer centricity and alignment of engineering with customer needs. Mr. Whitley and his teams will focus on scaling the company’s automation-centric tech stack and driving value for customers across the globe and in different industry segments.
As chief technology officer at Bullhorn, Mr. Whitley will bring innovation and experience in solving complex customer problems through technology. He has 25 years of experience building teams and delivering technology solutions to meet customer needs by scaling software product delivery and engineering capabilities globally, and ensuring cross-functional alignment. His career spans numerous industries, and he brings experience with a variety of technology platforms, both internally developed and acquired through M&A.
Most recently, Mr. Whitley was senior vice president of product development for Applied Systems, a cloud-based insurance software provider, and prior to that he was VP of product development at Intergraph. Mr. Whitley has led his teams through several private equity exits. He started his career as a software developer at Accenture.
“I am tremendously excited to join the Bullhorn team,” Mr. Whitley said. “Despite the fact that the company has more than 1,000 employees, it still operates as a truly agile company, and I am looking forward to delivering on the many innovations the team has in progress, including a new approach to facilitating an end-to-end candidate experience. But most importantly, I have tremendous belief in the company’s purpose and value: we help our customers put people to work, empowering them to support their families and communities, and this is a more important mission than ever.”
Related: Secured Signing Integrates with Bullhorn to Provide Digital Signature Capability
Bullhorn is a global leader in CRM and operations software for the recruitment industry. More than 10,000 recruiting companies rely on Bullhorn’s cloud-based platform to drive sales, build relationships and power their recruitment processes from end to end. Headquartered in Boston, with offices around the world, Bullhorn is founder-led and employs more than 1,000 people globally.
PE Firm Takes Majority Stake
Stone Point Capital, a private equity firm based in Greenwich, Conn., recently took a majority stake in Bullhorn. The hope is the investment will speed up the staffing and recruiting industry’s embrace of digital transformation. Terms of the transaction were not announced. Stone Point Capital will have a representative on the company’s board. Insight Partners and Genstar will remain investors in the Bullhorn business.
Bullhorn Names AI Business Unit Leader
Bullhorn has appointed Jason Heilman as leader of the company’s artificial intelligence business unit as senior vice president, product – automation and AI. Mr. Heilman was founder and CEO of Herefish, a staffing business process automation provider that was acquired by Bullhorn in January. Herefish, a former Bullhorn Marketplace partner, has become one of the fastest-growing candidate experience automation solutions in Bullhorn’s ecosystem.
“We are very excited to be working with the team at Stone Point as we enter the next phase of Bullhorn’s growth,” said Art Papas, founder and CEO of Bullhorn. “We have a tremendous opportunity to help the global staffing industry execute on their digital transformation strategies, and Stone Point’s experience and industry expertise will be invaluable as we grow the company to the next level. We’re also happy that Insight and Genstar will remain investors, as they have been integral to helping us more than double our revenue over the last three years.”
Chuck Davis, CEO at Stone Point Capital, said: “We are excited about the long-term opportunity to work with Bullhorn. We are in the early stages of the industry’s adoption of digital transformation initiatives, and we couldn’t be more excited about partnering with an experienced team that knows the industry, their customers, and how to build a business with a deep focus on customer experience.”
Related: Bullhorn Further Invests in Consulting Division, Appoints Leader
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media
