Melissa Laswell

Melissa Laswell

Head of Executive Recruiting - Blue Origin

For Melissa Laswell, recruiting began in retail operations, where she discovered her passion for people, leadership, and building strong teams.

While putting herself through undergraduate and graduate school, Melissa became a general manager and worked with brands including Victoria’s Secret Beauty, Ann Taylor, and Juicy Couture.

Early in her career, she found herself gravitating toward HR.

She loved leading and developing teams, creating inspirational environments, and coaching future leaders who would eventually move into other locations.

She also discovered how much she enjoyed finding talent.

In those days, recruiting meant walking the mall, passing out business cards, and actively looking for standout people in nearby stores.

Melissa quickly realized she loved the process of identifying, selecting, and bringing great talent onto her team.

That passion led her toward HR and, more specifically, recruiting.

She later pursued a master’s degree in organization development, which helped her transition from operations into corporate recruiting.

“I loved being able to find talent and select the talent directly for the team I was building,” she says.

Leaders Who Saw Her Potential

Looking back, Melissa credits several leaders with helping her grow into the leader she is today.

The first is Lorraine Kuba, her HR senior director and leader at Apple.

Lorraine saw Melissa’s potential early and helped her recognize capabilities she had not yet fully seen in herself.

For Melissa, having someone believe in her and advocate for her early in her career made a lasting impact.

Another influential leader was Andrew Golds, her former Chief Human Resources Officer at Pitney Bowes.

Andrew championed Melissa in rooms she was not in, helped elevate her career, and gave her opportunities to grow.

Under his leadership, Melissa stepped into her first vice president of global talent acquisition role, where she and her team were able to thrive.

She also credits Natalie Wilson, her first leader at Apple.

Natalie took Melissa under her wing, offered guidance and coaching, and continued to put her in situations that helped her grow.

Across all three leaders, Melissa sees a common theme: they recognized her potential, advocated for her, and helped her rise.

Building AI Literacy in HR

Melissa believes AI is no longer something coming in the future. It is already here.

At the beginning of 2025, she saw a major gap in the HR and talent acquisition community around AI literacy and education.

Many HR professionals were having AI thrust upon them without knowing where to start.

That realization led Melissa to become one of the inaugural members of a newly formed Human-Centric AI Council.

Since then, she has helped co-facilitate and design the council’s literacy and education pillar for HR practitioners.

For Melissa, the first step is curiosity.

Talent leaders must learn the foundations of AI, understand different use cases, and begin applying those lessons to their day-to-day work.

Using AI to Create Capacity

Melissa sees AI as a way to enhance human capability, not replace it.

She encourages talent leaders to identify where AI can remove administrative or repetitive tasks so recruiters can focus on the work only humans can do.

That means spending more time with candidates, hiring managers, and teams.

For her, AI should help streamline work, increase capacity, and free talent professionals to focus on strategic and human-centered contributions.

“How do you take those administrative and labor-intensive tasks off your plate so you can focus on the work that only you can do?” she says.

Advice for Talent Leaders Heading into 2026

Melissa’s advice for talent leaders is simple: get curious, lean in, and learn.

She believes HR and talent acquisition leaders have an opportunity to get back in the driver’s seat by building their own AI literacy first.

Before HR can enable the rest of the organization, it must upskill itself.

“We need to put our own oxygen mask on first,” she says.

For Melissa, the future of recruiting will require a shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset.

Leaders must understand how AI is being used across their organizations, explore responsible use cases, and help their teams build the skills needed to adapt.

By combining people-first leadership, operational insight, and a commitment to human-centered AI education, Melissa Laswell represents the kind of talent leader helping HR and recruiting move confidently into the future.