When I launched Kyle & Co, I wasn’t building a “shop.” I set out to build a collective—a home for sharp, practitioner-led voices who could cut through the noise, surface real insight, and push the conversation forward at the intersection of HR and technology.
Our vision has always been bigger than a research firm: it’s about creating a platform where credible leaders with conviction come together to shape the future of work.
Today, that vision takes a major step forward. I’m thrilled to welcome Brandice Payne as Head of Strategic Marketing & Initiatives, Emily Wares as Head of Solutions Consulting & Advisory, and Lydia Wu as Adjunct Analyst.
These aren’t hires for headcount. They’re force multipliers—each bringing a rare mix of credibility, creativity, and conviction, and together expanding what’s possible for our work and for the leaders we serve.
Meet Brandice: Making People Care
Superpower: Making people care—by turning research into movements and messages into communities.
Ask anyone who’s worked with Brandice—they don’t just market, they make people care. They’ve built their career at Lesbians Who Tech, Fetcher, SmartRecruiters, and Gem by doing what most marketing doesn’t—making it human.
Brandice knows what it feels like to sit in the client’s seat, juggling competing priorities and pressure, and they carry that empathy into everything they create. For them, it’s never about churning out campaigns—it’s about building communities, sparking conversations, and turning partnerships into something people actually want to be part of.
With WTF in Recruiting, they proved what the industry really craves: honesty, connection, and voices that don’t sound like everyone else.
What they’ll lead:
- Strategic marketing & narrative: Translating our IP into multidimensional programs that resonate with buyers, practitioners, and partners.
- Flagship research launches: Ensuring our work doesn’t gather dust in a PDF but becomes a reference point for the market.
- Community & narrative platforms: Creating spaces where hard conversations happen and giving leaders the words to drive them.
- Partner activations: Shaping initiatives that push the industry forward without compromising our market-neutral stance.
Why Brandice: They bring creativity, strategy, and practitioner credibility in equal measure. Their POV is simple: marketing should help people—and when it does, it creates clarity, credibility, and the momentum transformation requires.
Meet Emily: Turning Strategy Into Outcomes
Superpower: Turning strategy into measurable outcomes—fast.
When it comes down to it, Emily has the receipts. Across 20 enterprise companies averaging 30,000 employees and 6,500 hires a year, she architected solutions that reduced cycle times by 30 days, saved an average of $3M annually, and transformed candidate experiences with automation and AI.
Her work isn’t theoretical—it’s hands-on, proven, and transformative.
- At JLL, she designed a global TA strategy that scaled hiring without scaling the team, directly impacting revenue and profitability.
- At Zoom, she introduced AI at the top of the funnel, cutting time to first touch from 21 days to same-day and shrinking interview cycle times from 55 days to just 4—achieving a 93% efficiency gain and $1.9M in cost savings in under a year.
- At Workday, she modernized TA operations and team structure, reducing cost of delivery by $3M year-over-year for three years running.
What she’ll lead:
- Enterprise solution design: Architecting tech stacks and operating models that reduce cycle time, boost quality, and unlock capacity.
- Advisory & assurance: Keeping large consulting practices honest and ensuring solutions are built for adoption and ROI.
- Impact playbooks: Publishing repeatable patterns based on proven success at JLL, Zoom, Workday, and more.
- Value realization: Standing up KPIs and dashboards that tie investments directly to business outcomes.
Why Emily: She brings the rigor of a consultant and the credibility of a practitioner. Emily ensures that when Kyle & Co talks about transformation, it’s not theory—it’s backed by measurable results and operational impact.
Meet Lydia: The Swiss Army Knife of HR & Tech
Superpower: Demystifying the complex—bridging product, people strategy, and transformation.
From consulting at Accenture and Deloitte to leading innovation at Panasonic and building HR tech solutions, Lydia has been around the HR industry block and knows where all the potholes are. With a career spanning HR tech product development, people strategy, and large-scale HR transformations, she is a true HR Swiss Army knife.
Lydia is passionate about demystifying HR and tech and helping everyone in the ecosystem find their next “aha!” moment—preferably before their coffee gets cold. She’s also the founder and creator of Oops, Did I Think That Out Loud?, a platform dedicated to candid conversations at the intersection of HR and technology.
Her breadth of experience is unmatched: 800+ solution demos, 60+ system implementations, and a $40M HR purchasing portfolio managed. Lydia brings candor, humor, and hard-won lessons that ground our work in what really matters.
What she’ll lead:
- Plain-language AI & HR tech guides: Translating complexity into clarity so HR leaders feel confident and credible in the AI era.
- Human-centric adoption frameworks: Building governance models and “human-in-the-loop” approaches that keep people at the center of transformation.
- Buyer intelligence: Delivering evaluations focused on ROI and staying power, drawing on her deep practitioner and product experience.
- Council contributions: Helping shape Session Zero(s), mission + commitments, and a market-neutral underwriter engagement model.
Why Lydia: She embodies the balance of strategist, builder, and truth-teller. Lydia keeps us anchored in the practical realities of transformation while helping leaders step into the AI era with confidence.
Why this Matters (Now)
I mean… HR Technology Conference—the biggest industry event in our space—is next week, so I had to make a splash. 😊 But, more importantly… The market doesn’t need more half-baked content and out-of-touch ideas. It needs clarity, credibility, and cadence:
- Clarity in what to do next (not someday).
- Credibility from leaders who’ve built, bought, and implemented at scale.
- Cadence that turns ideas into repeatable playbooks teams can actually run.
With Brandice, Emily, and Lydia, Kyle & Co moves from smart analysis to full-stack impact—research → narrative → solution design → value realized.
What’s Coming: Flagship Series in 2025
What’s Coming: Flagship Series, New Voices, and More
2025 is a defining year for Kyle & Co. Our work is anchored in the AI Momentum Model—a MAJOR study on the state of AI in HR launching next week that helps organizations map where they stand in their AI journey, from experimentation to real impact.
And we’re not stopping there. Two other major bodies of work:
- The AI Momentum Diagnostic (launching next week): A practical tool for HR leaders to benchmark AI readiness, diagnose maturity across dimensions, and identify the next steps for moving from pilots to proven value.
- Solution Design & Evaluation Framework (publishing Fall 2025, led by Lydia): A comprehensive set of guides, templates, and criteria to help HR teams assess, select, and manage AI-enabled solutions with clarity and consistency—rooted in Lydia’s experience with 800+ demos, 60+ implementations, and a $40M portfolio of HR tech investments.
Alongside these flagship initiatives:
- Emily will be leading the creation of Performance Intelligence Playbooks—patterns and KPIs that help leaders prove the impact of transformation.
- Brandice will be building market-neutral community platforms and initiatives that ensure our research doesn’t gather dust in a PDF, but becomes the reference point practitioners and partners use to drive adoption.
- Our newest team members—Brandice, Emily, and Lydia—are already shaping the workstreams and narratives that will anchor our next wave of research and advisory.
And there’s more coming. In the weeks ahead, we’ll be announcing a strategic partnership that expands our ability to deliver on this vision—bringing even more depth, reach, and impact to the work.
This isn’t just about content—it’s about building the infrastructure for transformation: frameworks, tools, and communities that give leaders clarity, confidence, and conviction to lead in the AI era.
This is the collective I envisioned: diverse voices, shared conviction, and the courage to build what the industry actually needs.
Welcome, Brandice, Emily, and Lydia. The work gets bigger now—and so does our impact.