Bruce Zambrowicz

Bruce Zambrowicz

SVP, Talent Acquisition, PTC

Bruce Zambrowicz didn’t grow up planning to work in recruiting. Like many long-tenured talent leaders, he found his way into the profession through a mix of curiosity, challenge, and a fascination with how people and businesses come together.

From the beginning, Zambrowicz was drawn to complexity. Hiring, he believes, is one of the most intricate puzzles in business — matching the right person with the right opportunity at exactly the right moment. Add in the human element, the nuance, and the fact that no two days are ever the same, and he found work that never stopped being interesting.

“I’ve always liked challenges and puzzles,” he says. “And there’s tremendous complexity in bringing the right people and companies together.”

That mindset launched a career that has now spanned three decades.

From Agency Founder to Global Talent Leader

Zambrowicz spent the first half of his career on the agency side of recruiting, supporting companies from the outside. During that time, he also founded and ran his own recruiting business for roughly ten years, gaining firsthand experience building teams, serving clients, and scaling operations.

Eventually, he made the transition in-house — a shift that reshaped how he viewed the function.

“I’ve never seen talent acquisition as just a support function,” he explains. “We’re a strategic business lever. Our job is to help people make great hiring decisions under pressure — in a way that’s repeatable, thoughtful, and aligned to the business.”

Over the past 14 years, Zambrowicz has led global talent acquisition teams across multiple organizations. Today, he serves as Vice President of Global Talent Acquisition at PTC, where he partners closely with business leaders to ensure hiring strategy directly supports company growth, innovation, and performance.

Learning from Leaders Along the Way

Across his career, Zambrowicz credits much of his growth to the leaders he’s worked alongside. He sees himself as an “aggregate of shared knowledge,” shaped by colleagues, mentors, and team members who have challenged and supported him.

He points to several Chief People Officers who had a lasting impact on his leadership style — including Heather Hartford, Dina Upton, and Lisa Riley. From them, he learned to be bold, to communicate the value of talent acquisition clearly, and to push beyond the perception of recruiting as a background function.

“They helped me understand the importance of telling the story of what talent acquisition does,” he says. “So we’re not operating in the shadows, but recognized as a true driver of the business.”

He also highlights the influence of strong CEOs, including PTC’s Neil Barua, whose focus on accountability, clarity, and prioritization reinforced Zambrowicz’s belief that talent teams must operate with the same rigor and focus as any other business function.

What Energizes Him Now

Even after 30 years, Zambrowicz remains deeply energized by the impact of his work.

He takes pride not only in building strong recruiting organizations, but in knowing those efforts directly shape the success of the broader business. Hiring the right people, at the right time, in the right way is one of the most powerful levers a company has — and he doesn’t take that responsibility lightly.

There’s also a personal dimension that keeps him motivated.

“Career decisions are some of the most meaningful and stressful decisions people make,” he says. “We have the opportunity to truly influence someone’s trajectory.”

That sense of responsibility fuels his commitment to both process excellence and human connection.

How Talent Leadership Is Evolving

Having worked through multiple waves of change — from the early days of email and online resumes to today’s AI-driven tools — Zambrowicz has seen talent acquisition continuously reinvent itself.

One principle has remained constant: clarity matters more than speed.

“Speed is a competitive advantage,” he says. “But clarity drives better outcomes. We have to be clear about what quality hiring looks like and build processes we trust and execute consistently.”

He believes great talent functions are defined by measurable, repeatable systems that help hiring managers make strong decisions — even under pressure.

At the same time, he’s watching the rise of AI with both optimism and caution.

The technology, he believes, has enormous potential to remove administrative burden and increase efficiency. But he warns against losing sight of the human core of the work.

“At the end of the day, hiring is deeply personal,” he says. “AI should elevate the human experience, not replace it.”

Bruce’s Advice for 2026

As talent leaders look ahead, Zambrowicz’s advice centers on two themes: clarity and humanity.

First, he urges teams to define what success truly looks like — especially around quality of hire — and build disciplined, data-informed processes to support it. Without that foundation, speed and technology won’t deliver meaningful results.

Second, he encourages leaders to protect the human side of recruiting, even as automation expands.

“This is still a relationship-driven business,” he says. “We can use technology to remove noise and manual work, but we can’t lose the personal connection. That’s where trust is built and great decisions are made.”

For Zambrowicz, the future of talent acquisition belongs to leaders who can balance operational rigor with empathy — combining clear strategy, strong process, and genuine human understanding to build organizations that thrive.