Earlier this year, we embarked on a new beginning as Untapped to help create more belonging, happiness, and justice in the world. Today we start our next chapter. Ben Herman is stepping down as CEO and moving into a full-time Board of Directors position so we can bring on a seasoned leader to take the company to its next phase of growth.
Ben has been instrumental in founding and building Untapped. Ben’s leadership has brought us from zero to one since our early days as Jumpstart and we’re deeply grateful for his support as we find our next CEO.
“Founding and leading Untapped has been the most fulfilling professional experience of my life. I’m grateful for the team and proud of what Untapped has accomplished. I look forward to continuing to serve as a member of the Board and helping find the right leader to drive the company’s next stage of growth,” said Ben.
In the interim, our co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer Adam Gefkovicz and our Chief People Officer Tariq Meyers will become co-CEOs. In addition to driving Untapped’ revenue growth, Adam has been instrumental in leading the organization and the broader Untapped community through the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tariq’s leadership experience from Lyft and Coinbase helped grow our team from 30 to 80 employees in the first half of 2021, and he navigated our transition to a fully “Remote First” model. As Untapped leaders, Adam and Tariq have worked in lockstep over the last year to expand our impact and deliver on our mission of making the world more equitable by expanding access to opportunity.
“Talent is everywhere, yet opportunity is not. I’m committed to working with our incredible team, as well as our advisory board of candidates, recruiters, heads of DEI, and heads of talent, to ensure we continue building for the margins instead of the majority,” said Adam.
As we look for Untapped’ next CEO, we’re focused on expanding our dynamic candidate community and better enabling customers to deliver on their promises of inclusion. There has never been a greater time to empower businesses to find opportunity for the overlooked and underestimated talent around the world. We’re inspired by the half a million people that have found career-defining opportunities through our platform and thousands of recruiters who have hired more equitably with our help.
“It’s encouraging to see more companies evolve their focus from finding ‘diverse’ candidates to building diverse teams with intention. I’m emboldened by the opportunity to help more companies look beyond resumes and make the world more equitable by expanding the opportunity landscape through recruitment,” said Tariq.
Hundreds of company partners are using our platform to connect, source, and engage top underrepresented talent, and even more are already a part of our Communities.