Hiring for Hypergrowth: Wesley Gilbert on Scaling Talent at On Running, Uber and Manychat
In this episode of the Leaders in Talent podcast, Adriaan Kolff sits down with Wesley Gilbert, Head of Talent Acquisition at Manychat. Wesley's career has been built inside some of the most talked-about scale stories in tech: Google, four years at Uber as EMEA hyperscaled from 2,000 to 20,000 people, then four years at On Running, where he led global TA as the company grew from 300 to 3,000 employees and built the retail business from zero to around a thousand. Wesley walks through how On Running's founders refused to copy the Nike and Adidas playbook and instead built a two-tier hiring strategy: high-potential talent who would grow up inside the culture, and senior leaders pulled from tech, FMCG and luxury who shared the brand's passion but brought outside-industry thinking. He explains how the team broke down the company's values into an assessment model, why interview rounds were intentionally longer, how MetaView and structured debriefs raised interview quality at scale, and where On's approach differed from Uber's competency-first, talent-density model. Wesley also talks about the move to Manychat, where AI, the creator economy and a more competency-driven culture have shaped how he is rebuilding the TA function. He shares the leadership lessons that took him longest to learn: stepping back from being the expert in the room, the 'big rocks' framework his CEO at On gave him, and how to build a leadership team you can lean on when your function scales past what one person can hold. Timecodes 00:59 Welcome and Wesley's background: Google, Uber, On Running, ManyChat 02:22 Thriving in high-intensity, build-from-scratch environments 03:54 Joining On Running at 300 people: a Swiss startup with a culture-first vision 06:18 Why On refused to copy Nike and Adidas, and the two-tier hiring strategy 08:58 The three risks of hypergrowth: quality, culture and diversity 10:08 Scaling from 300 to 3,000: how to convince talent before the brand was known 11:05 Defining what "top talent" actually means and turning values into an assessment model 18:17 Why On's process had six to seven rounds, and the experience day in Zurich 20:43 What Uber did differently: competency over culture, and country-by-country startups 23:56 Joining ManyChat and what the platform does for content creators 27:20 Standardising and professionalising the ManyChat recruitment process 30:12 Lessons in hindsight: positioning TA as a strategic function, not an executional one 32:39 Learning to delegate, build a leadership team and stop being the expert in everything 35:24 The 'big rocks' framework Wesley's CEO Martin shared with him at On 37:35 Adriaan on his own move from day-to-day operator to founder on the balcony 42:16 Where to connect with Wesley ___________________________ Connect with us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/matchr/ Get in touch with us: https://www.matchr.io/who-we-are/contact/ ___________________________ Connect with Wesley Gilbert: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wezgilbert/ Connect with Adriaan Kolff: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriaankolff/ ___________________________ RSS feed: https://media.rss.com/leaders-in-talent/feed.xml
