Stephen Fogarty

How would you describe your time at adidas North America?

If you threw some adidas originals on Doc Holiday, asked him to give up dentistry and take on recruiting, took his pistol from him and gave him the internet then you have the role of talent acquisition in the 21st Century.

Doc Holiday ventured into the wild frontiers and to survive he needed to understand the landscape, have strong relationships, a reputation and an ability to act on it. This made him a legend.

Talent acquisition is the wild west of the 21st Century. Everybody is out there looking for their plot on the internet with the desire to build something great. You are either a bystander or you are in the game. Then you have the villains. These are all of those competitors out there looking at how they can build it better, faster, smarter. The landscape is constantly changing. You have to get smart about what's relevant and what's not. And if you play all your cards right you make it through the struggle, defeat the villains and make your indelible mark in digital history. Welcome to my frontier--the Wild Digital West.

At adidas I am tasked with building a world class talent acquisition function, a kicking talent brand, Web 2.0 recruitment strategy and whatever and wherever else the twists, turns, clicks and crashes of the Wild Digital West takes me. The thing that Doc did not have was a pair of kick'n adidas originals which I personally believe are a necessity in the Wild Digital West.

Prior to adidas I spent almost seven years at Waggener Edstrom Worldwide. My role was to develop and implement integrated strategies to attract key talent. I served as a digital "trend spotter" for the agency's staffing function as well as played a key role in advancing our talent relationship capabilities with CRM and Web 2.0/social networking strategies.

I spent the first two years of my career on the agency side. The volume and intensity of agency recruitment laid the foundation for where I am today.

Steve Fogarty's Specialties:
Talent Acquisition, Strategic Program Development, Assessment, Client Management, SEO, Web 2.0, CRM and Employment Branding...