CHICAGO and SANTA CLARA, Sept. 28, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc. (Nasdaq: HSII), a premier provider of global leadership advisory and on-demand talent solutions, and Eightfold AI, a leader in creating AI-driven talent development platforms, today announced a partnership to develop a new digital leadership platform that is intended to offer organizations a new way to understand, assess and make decisions about leadership talent, ensuring they have the right leaders in place today and are able to identify and develop the leaders they need for tomorrow.

As part of Heidrick & Struggles' broader strategic efforts to increase market penetration and expand its suite of leadership capabilities and solutions, the firm is focused on developing new innovative, tech-enabled offerings designed to address the ongoing and future needs of its clients. Anthony Colella, a Global Managing Partner who joined Heidrick & Struggles earlier this year, is responsible for leading the development of the firm's new digital capabilities and solutions, and brings deep expertise in establishing and growing digital products businesses. The partnership between Heidrick & Struggles and Eightfold AI is the first step in bringing to market a new digital offering that combines leadership advisory and talent development with leading technology and AI. 

Krishnan Rajagopalan, President and CEO, Heidrick & Struggles, stated, "We are excited about our partnership with Eightfold AI, a leader in AI-driven talent solutions. Together, we believe we can offer organizations a new way to make faster, smarter leadership decisions across key areas – from hiring needs and mobility to succession planning – at scale. At Heidrick & Struggles we are focused on advising our clients on their most critical leadership needs, and this partnership with Eightfold AI marks another step in in our journey toward growing our impact with clients, expanding our suite of leadership solutions and capabilities, and investing in new innovative, tech-driven offerings to drive future growth and shareholder value."

"Today's organizations often do not have the visibility and leadership intelligence systems they need to drive business impact," added Colella. "The digital transformation of leadership – or how we help organizations position leaders for optimal business success using insights and AI – is a new digital-first approach to enabling agile, future-focused leadership planning and better business outcomes. Heidrick & Struggles and Eightfold AI are uniquely positioned to deliver these types of new solutions and, by working together, we can fundamentally change how organizations understand and approach leadership and talent development."

Ashutosh Garg, Founder and CEO of Eightfold AI, commented, "Our partnership with Heidrick & Struggles represents our shared vision for using advanced technology and leadership intelligence to develop and retain the best talent in organizations. We believe that working together with the Heidrick & Struggles team will allow us to share advancements in leadership and AI-driven talent processes with future-facing organizations everywhere, and help to deliver on our mission to provide the right career for everyone in the world."

Announced at the industry-leading HR Technology Conference & Expo, the partnership is anticipated to bring a new digital leadership platform that offers real-time leadership insights, data analytics and AI to fragmented leadership development and planning processes. The platform is designed to give companies the ability to optimize talent forecast planning and alignment to business needs through rapid, data-driven technology insights, powered by the combination of Heidrick & Struggles' deep experience across executive search, leadership and organization assessment and development, and on-demand talent capabilities, and Eightfold AI's deep learning artificial intelligence platform.

About Heidrick & Struggles
Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc. (Nasdaq: HSII) is a premier provider of global leadership advisory and on-demand talent solutions, serving the senior-level talent and consulting needs of the world's top organizations. In our role as trusted leadership advisors, we partner with our clients to develop future-ready leaders and organizations, bringing together our services and offerings in executive search, diversity and inclusion, leadership assessment and development, organization and team acceleration, culture shaping and on-demand, independent talent solutions. Heidrick & Struggles pioneered the profession of executive search more than 65 years ago. Today, the firm provides integrated talent and human capital solutions to help our clients change the world, one leadership team at a time.® www.heidrick.com

About Eightfold AI
Eightfold AI® delivers the Talent Intelligence Platform™, the most effective way for organizations to retain top performers, upskill and reskill the workforce, recruit top talent efficiently, and reach diversity goals. Eightfold AI's deep learning artificial intelligence platform has been issued numerous patents based on its ability to empower enterprises to transform their talent into a competitive advantage. For more information, visit www.eightfold.ai

Forward-looking Statements
Certain statements in this press release are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, the statements made concerning the expected benefits of the partnership with Eightfold AI, and are made pursuant to the safe-harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the following words: "may," "will," "could," "would," "should," "expect," "intend," "plan," "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "predict," "project," "aim," "potential," "continue," "ongoing," "goal," "can," "seek," "target" or the negative of these terms or other similar expressions, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words. You should read any such forward-looking statements carefully, as they involve a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions that may cause actual results to differ significantly from those projected or contemplated in any such forward-looking statement, including those risks described in Heidrick & Struggles' filings with the SEC, such as its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020 and in subsequent filings. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this communication or the date of any document incorporated by reference in this document. Except as required by applicable law or regulation, Heidrick & Struggles does not assume any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements whether as the result of new developments or otherwise.

Media Contacts
Heidrick & Struggles
Nina Chang 
nchang@heidrick.com

Eightfold AI
Alex Cohen
acohen@eightfold.ai

SOURCE Heidrick & Struggles International, Inc.