One of the most rewarding parts of my career is the opportunity to meet some incredible people.
Founders, disruptors, investors, builders, buyers, leaders, challengers—I’ve met all sorts, and I have the good fortune to call many of them friends (even a few BFFs).
Today is especially rewarding, because I get to welcome two of them to the Kyle & Co team. Before I spill the beans, I want to tell you the tale of two cities: Paris, FR & Austin, TX.
Let’s start with Austin—where my career began.
Authenticity: Achilles Heel & The Mark of an Incredible Industry Analyst
I was working as a blogger for a startup covering the talent and technology space. The company has since been acquired by Gartner (which I totally use to say I’ve worked at 2 of the Big 4 research firms lol), but back then we were scrappy.
My job was to write about industry trends and news, promote my articles, and get other thought leaders and influencers to link to my work. It was the perfect job for an outspoken, idealistic Millennial with a bone to pick with recruiting and HR.
We didn’t have any travel budget but that didn’t stop me from getting out there; I made friends online by networking and sharing ideas with practitioners and solutions providers I met on forums like #TChat and through aggressive promotion of my blog articles (backlinks, baby!). Occasionally, though, my online buddies came to Austin—especially for SXSW, when Craig Fisher would host TalentNet Live.
There I met industry legends like Gerry Crispin, Sarah White, Maren Hogan, Jessica Miller Merrill, Carrie Corbin, Lars Schmidt, Kat Kibben, Lis & Jason Seiden, Stacy Zapar, Matt Staney, Tiffany Lee, Robin Schooling… Literally countless people who have shaped my career—including the infamous, illustrious, irreplaceable Matt Charney.
On the surface Matt and I were like oil and water: I was trying hard to be seen as put-together and worth listening to, while he was effortlessly intelligent and had a devil-may-cry attitude I couldn’t even comprehend as an industry newbie. I was wearing button-downs, he was wearing hoodies; I was an idealist, he was a nihilist; I was bubbly, he was… less so—but we immediately clicked.
We respected each other’s work and perspective on the industry, but the real connection was rooted in common ground: We’re both authentic to a fault. It’s been an Achilles heel, a double-edged sword, and a powerful catalyst for us as our careers ran parallel to one another.
And we’ve both had careers marked with bold moves and lessons learned.
I’ve learned a lot since I first started down the path of industry analyst. But one of the greatest lessons I’ve learned is that being smart isn’t all that differentiated.
People want perspective they can work with, insight they can connect with, and analysis they can trust. Authenticity has been the unlock for me as I’ve grown from one learning experience to the next, and for Charney as he’s navigated his own winding path from practitioner to pundit.
And, as it turns out, authenticity has proven to be one of the marks of a great industry analyst.
So when he called me to get my thoughts on his next move, there was really only one thought worth sharing: Join me in building the next-gen analyst firm.
Today I’m honored to share that Matt has accepted my invitation to join the team as Principal Analyst, Capital Markets & Industry! To learn more about his program—and why he decided to join the team—you can find his thoughts here.
Product Leaders in Paris: A Particularly Personal Trend
Whereas the first story started with where my career began, this one captures two of the biggest moments since: My breakout moment in 2015, and my boldest move in 2025. Both happen to take place in Paris.
In 2015, after nearly 5 years working hard to make a name for myself as an analyst, I made the super-brash decision to go out on my own. With the help of Maren Hogan and the RedBranch team, advice from Sarah White, John Sumser, and William Tincup, and support from Jeanne Achille, I launched Lighthouse Research & Advisory—which is now led by Ben Eubanks. I had little more than ambition and grit, but it ended up changing the course of my career and my life.
And my first client was Cielo.
Kristen Wright and Annamarie Andrews engaged me to work on a research project—and invited me to share my work at their annual customer event in London. I was thrilled! It was my first big speaking opportunity (arguably too big, but I’ve learned a lot since), and I decided to celebrate by taking the train down to Paris for the weekend—my first time in the city.
Coincidentally, Adam Godson (Cielo’s VP of Global Talent Solutions at the time), was headed there too!
I hardly knew him, other than being a fan of his work as the product leader for SkyRecruit—Cielo’s proprietary technology operating system built on Yello. But over the course of the weekend, we became fast friends—shared relationship advice, perspectives on the industry, and dreams for the future. Had I known just how far Adam would end up going, I might have taken more pictures. It’s a weekend I’ll never forget.
I was recently back in Paris for UNLEASH World, where I had another big speaking gig (four of them, to be exact). It’s also where I had the opportunity to spend some time with another great product leader: Jacob Paul.
Jake and I met shortly after he sold TalentWall to Crosschq and joined their team as Chief Product Officer.
It was one of my first briefings after joining Aptitude Research, and I was smitten with what he had built—how useful it was for talent leaders under immense pressure to deliver more with less. It was immediately clear that Jake was the kind of innovator who wasn’t just capitalizing on a problem, that his desire to help talent teams was… authentic.
And you already know how I feel about authenticity.
Fast forward to this Fall in Paris—and, once again, I found myself sharing relationship advice, passionate takes on the state of our space, and… dreams for the future with another incredible product leader.
But this time around, the spark hit differently.
You see, my vision for Kyle & Co goes beyond assembling smart folks with domain expertise—though we already have that in spades. More than that, I want to bring research to life, I want to put it in the hands of everyone who needs it, I want it to be useful.
To do this, I need to be creating more than white papers and webinars. Though I still love longform content (case in point, this blog is at 1100 words already!), the future demands more dynamic experiences, more personalized recommendations, more tailored insights. And I need someone who has the know-how to build it.
I also need someone who, like Emily Wares, can help me cut to the heart of what makes solutions work.
Innovation isn’t easy, and delivering tangible impact is even harder. Jake has sat in several practitioner seats—recruiter, product leader, customer advocate, ecosystem partner. And I believe that this particular blend of expertise—combined with that hallmark authenticity—will make Jake an incredible industry analyst as well.
So… It brings me great joy to share that Jake has accepted my invitation to join the team as Head of Product & Innovation! You can get Jake’s own thoughts on this opportunity here.
In closing, I’ll say this: I’ve met a lot of incredible people throughout my career, and I’ve learned even more—often the hard way. One of the other great ones is that ideas are the easy part; execution is the hardest and most important part.
The addition of these two amazingly intelligent and authentically insightful people to the Kyle & Co bench is, if anything, a signal to the market that I’m building something different.
Please join me in congratulating Charney and Jake—and be on the lookout for more announcements on the work we’re taking on together.
Cheers,
Kyle