AI Governance
and Workforce Architecture
for the AI-Era.

Executive Search
and Strategic Talent Advisory
for Critical Leadership Decisions.

AI Governance & Workforce Architecture for the AI Era. Executive Search & Strategic Talent Advisory for Critical Leadership Decisions.

Founders and leadership teams partner with Talent Pools when hiring decisions feel high-risk. We specialise in AI governance leadership – Chief AI Officers, Heads of AI Governance, and emerging roles requiring technical fluency, risk expertise, and strategic acumen. We help leaders decide whether to hire, redesign roles, or automate before costly decisions are locked in.

TALENT POOLS

Talent Strategy. Reimagined To Reduce Hiring Risk.

Each letter embodies a value added service, equipping businesses with the insights, tools, and expertise required to build and sustain competitive advantage – even as decision making evolves in the agentic AI era.

We provide in-depth market intelligence, including real-time data on compensation trends, competitor hiring practices, and talent movement within your industry. This service ensures you're well-informed about market dynamics, helping you stay competitive in your talent strategy.

Our hiring and workforce advisory services are designed to bring clarity at moments of change. We help leaders define the right roles, assess whether to hire or redesign, and align team structure with business priorities and AI-era realities.

For critical leadership roles, we support succession planning to strengthen continuity and reduce risk in an AI-enabled organisation. We provide senior leadership and AI-informed advisory to help organisations prepare for future leadership transitions.

We specialise in executive search for AI governance and transformation leadership – Chief AI Officers, Heads of AI Governance, VPs of AI Strategy – alongside C-suite appointments across the knowledge economy. We focus on roles where the cost of getting it wrong is high.

Our onboarding advisory supports the effective integration of new hires in AI-enabled organisations. We help leaders design onboarding frameworks where people and AI agents work in harmony from day one, supporting clarity, adoption and long-term effectiveness.

Equity, fairness and bias awareness are integral to AI-era hiring decisions. We provide DE&I and bias advisory, embedding human-in-the-loop judgement into AI-assisted hiring frameworks to help organisations build equitable teams and reduce risk.

We proactively build talent pipelines aligned to your growth and change agenda, including transitions to agentic and human-led workforces. This approach helps leaders plan workforce needs, manage change with confidence, and maintain access to high-quality talent as the organisation evolves.

From first interaction to offer decision, we optimise the hiring journey to support clarity, fairness and trust. This includes shaping human and AI-assisted touchpoints, feedback loops and interview decision-making to ensure a rigorous, candidate-respectful experience.

Our on-demand talent acquisition advisory provides leadership teams with senior TA judgement, without the commitment of a permanent hire. Designed for organisations navigating change, growth or uncertainty, this offering delivers flexible, AI-era hiring guidance through advisory support or retained engagement.

We provide decision-focused training for hiring leaders to strengthen interview judgement, mitigate bias, and improve decision quality in AI-assisted hiring. This equips teams to assess talent rigorously, make confident hiring decisions, and secure the right capability for the organisation.

Using market and talent intelligence, we benchmark compensation to support fair, competitive and defensible decisions. This enables leaders to make informed choices on pay structures and rewards, supporting attraction, retention and workforce sustainability.

AI GOVERNANCE & TRANSFORMATION LEADERSHIP

We specialise in executive search for AI governance and transformation roles – the leadership positions that make responsible AI deployment possible. These are unicorn profiles that require technical fluency, risk expertise, strategic acumen, and executive presence.

Specialising In:

Why AI Governance Matters:

AI governance isn't compliance theatre. It's the strategic capability that determines whether your AI investments deliver sustainable competitive advantage or create existential risk. Boards are asking for governance. Regulators are demanding it. And most organisations don't have the leadership in place to deliver it.

We understand what these roles actually do – and what separates good governance leaders from checkbox-ticking bureaucrats. For boards seeking to build this strategic capability and appoint the right leadership, we are the specialist search partner.

Beyond AI governance, we specialise in building C-suite and senior leadership capability across the knowledge economy. Whether you're recruiting a Chief Insights Officer (CIO), Chief Research Officer (CRO), Chief Strategy Officer (CSO), Chief Growth Officer (CGO) or Head of Insights, these are the roles we know intimately. We've secured leaders across insights, research, and consulting firms who combine deep technical rigour with strategic business acumen.

Solutions

Senior, tailored engagements shaped around critical hiring, workforce and change decisions. Each engagement is designed around context, risk and leadership priorities — not off-the-shelf recruitment models.

ON-DEMAND TA & WORKFORCE ADVISORY

A flexible, on-demand TA advisory engagement providing senior, AI-era hiring judgement without the commitment of a permanent hire. I work with leadership teams to shape hiring strategy, role definition and workforce decisions, helping reduce risk, control cost and future-proof hiring. Advisory delivered via subscription, with executive appointments handled separately.

ENGAGED SEARCH

EXECUTIVE SEARCH

Executive search for founders, CEOs, investors and boards making high-stakes leadership decisions. This engagement is designed for complexity where confidentiality, leadership judgement, succession risk and future capability matter as much as experience.

TALENT INTELLIGENCE

Ongoing access to talent intelligence to inform workforce planning, succession, hiring timing and change decisions. Designed for leaders who want to understand the talent landscape before committing to action.

Our Story

I founded Talent Pools to help ambitious organisations make better hiring and workforce decisions in a rapidly changing market. Too often, leaders are forced to act with incomplete information or default to familiar profiles. I wanted to change that.

Through flexible advisory, search and talent intelligence engagements — including market mapping, talent mapping, pipelining and compensation insight — I work with founders and leadership teams to reduce risk, access non-obvious capability, and ensure each hire supports long-term growth and competitive advantage.

In 2023, I attended a Generative AI conference in San Francisco, and it transformed my perspective on the future of market research. Since then, I’ve been focused on how AI can amplify, not replace, rigorous research thinking. Working with AI-powered insights platforms as they scaled confirmed my belief that increasingly agentic tools unlock new opportunities, while making human judgement and human-in-the-loop decision-making more important than ever.

I founded Talent Pools because I saw a gap in the market. Digital or technology recruiters often miss the nuances and rigour of the market research industry, while traditional insights recruiters struggle with the demands and vision required to attract talent for agile, AI-driven startups or scaleups. Talent Pools bridges that gap, combining a deep understanding of market research processes with AI expertise and passion for innovation, empowering ResTech companies to build high-performing, future-focused teams.

Joanna Byerley

Founder of Talent Pools

Our Story

Joanna founded Talent Pools to help ambitious organisations make better hiring and workforce decisions in a rapidly changing market. Too often, leaders are forced to act with incomplete information or default to familiar profiles. She wanted to change that.

Her specialist sector is the knowledge economy, particularly the world of insights, consultancy, and data-driven firms. Through flexible advisory, search, and talent intelligence engagements, she works with founders and leadership teams in this sector to reduce risk, access non-obvious capability, and ensure each hire supports long-term growth and competitive advantage.

She now advises boards and leadership teams on AI governance – not just hiring for AI roles, but helping organisations understand what governance actually means in practice. Most recruiters can't distinguish between a Chief AI Officer and a Chief Data Officer. She can. This expertise informs every search engagement, whether she's appointing a CAIO or a Head of Insights.

In 2023, I attended a Generative AI conference in San Francisco, and it transformed my perspective on the future of market research. Since then, I’ve been focused on how AI can amplify, not replace, rigorous research thinking. Working with AI-powered insights platforms as they scaled confirmed my belief that increasingly agentic tools unlock new opportunities, while rendering human judgement and human-in-the-loop decision making more important than ever.

I founded Talent Pools after identifying a clear gap in the market. Digital and technology recruiters often miss the nuance and rigour of the market research industry, while traditional insights practitioners struggle with the pace, ambition, and vision required to attract talent for agile, AI-driven startups and scaleups. Talent Pools bridges that gap by combining deep research expertise with AI fluency and a passion for innovation, empowering the knowledge economy firms to build high-performing, future-focused teams.

Joanna Byerley

Founder of Talent Pools

Trusted By

Endorsements

Hear from clients on what it’s like to work together and the outcomes that matter.

Client Success Stories

Engaged Search for Head of Insights | ResTech

Client

UK-based tech startup specialising in creative testing software.

Challenge

Solution

Result

Client Quote

Embedded TA for Growth Strategy Consultancy

Client

UK-based growth strategy start-up focusing on GTM, product/service, and experience strategies for global technology clients.

Challenge

Solution

Value Add

Result

Client Quote

Framework

Whatever the context, advisory-led engagements are shaped around the decisions you need to make next — whether you’re navigating growth, correcting mis-hires, or responding to investor and market pressure.

You may be clarifying key leadership roles, redesigning your workforce in the age of AI, or preparing for critical senior appointments in complex or sensitive situations. Our engagements are designed to meet you at each stage — before commitment, during change, and when the cost of getting it wrong is high.

Plug In & Plug Out

What you will get:

Stay & Scale

What you will get:

Find & Elevate

What you will get:

Lead & Transform

What you will get:

Plug In & Plug Out

What you will get:

Stay & Scale

What you will get:

Find & Elevate

What you will get:

Lead & Transform

What you will get:

Not ready to hire yet but interested in Bespoke Intelligence Solutions including Talent Mapping, Talent Pipelining and Benefits & Compensation Insights?

Contact Information

Joanna Byerley

AI Governance Advisory and Executive Search for Knowledge Economy Leadership in ambitious organisations globally.

Let's Talk Talent Strategy