Gabriel Hitt

Employer Brand · Talent Attraction · Employee Experience

I build the strategies that make people want to join, stay and grow.

I’m Gabriel Hitt, an employer brand and talent strategy executive with 13+ years of experience building global functions, employee value propositions, recruitment marketing ecosystems and culture programs for complex organizations.

My work connects what a company promises talent with what employees actually experience — using research, storytelling, technology and data to turn that promise into something people can see, feel and act on.

Explore My Work View Experience

New York City · Experience across North America, EMEA and APAC

13+

Years shaping employer brands and talent strategies

3,000+

Employees activated through a global ambassador program in year one

2,500

Monthly users of an AI career advisor built from concept to launch

$1M+

Activation business scaled from $30K to $1M+ in revenue within one year

What I Do

I work at the intersection of brand, talent and employee experience.

The strongest employer brands aren’t campaigns. They’re systems.

They connect business strategy, employee experience, candidate expectations and the stories an organization tells about itself.

I’ve spent my career building those systems — first advising Fortune 500 companies as a consultant, then leading employer brand and talent attraction strategy inside global organizations including PepsiCo and Nasdaq.

My work has ranged from building EVPs and recruitment marketing functions from the ground up to redesigning candidate experiences, developing global talent campaigns, shaping culture strategy and creating AI-powered employee tools.

Selected Work

Strategy is more useful when you can see what changed.

01 · Nasdaq

Building a global employer brand function from the ground up

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Challenge

Nasdaq needed a more unified way to articulate why talent should join and stay with the company — and the infrastructure to activate that story consistently across regions, channels and recruiting teams.

Action

I built the employer brand and recruitment marketing function from the ground up, developed and launched Nasdaq’s first Employee Value Proposition within three months, established the global operating model and built a team of more than 10 strategists and analysts.

The work expanded into careers-site strategy, employee storytelling, recruitment campaigns, candidate experience, university partnerships and employer reputation.

Result

The function became a global talent attraction capability spanning North America, EMEA and APAC.

A new employee ambassador program activated more than 3,000 employees in its first year and generated more than $200K in earned media value.

02 · Nasdaq

Turning career development into an AI-powered employee experience

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Challenge

Employees needed easier access to career guidance without requiring every question to flow through managers or HR.

Action

I conceived and built an internal AI career advisor from concept through deployment, translating career policies and development guidance into a scalable self-service experience employees could access on demand.

The work required product thinking beyond traditional HR communications: identifying the employee need, structuring the experience, designing the knowledge architecture and driving adoption.

Result

The platform scaled to approximately 2,500 employee users per month, creating a new way for employees to navigate career development at scale.

03 · PepsiCo

Using audience strategy to broaden the early-talent pipeline

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Challenge

PepsiCo wanted to strengthen the diversity of its campus talent pipeline while improving the effectiveness of recruitment marketing investment.

Action

I combined audience segmentation, targeted campus campaigns, differentiated messaging, paid media, lead-generation and geo-targeted activation to reach priority talent audiences more intentionally.

I also built measurement frameworks and executive dashboards to track applicant demographics, campaign effectiveness and attraction outcomes.

Result

Diverse applications increased 31% within four months.

The Consulting Years

Before I built employer brands inside companies, I helped companies figure out what theirs should be.

I spent eight years at Universum advising Fortune 500 organizations across financial services, banking, technology, consumer goods and energy.

Clients included Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, UBS, Unilever, ExxonMobil and Charles Schwab.

That experience became my training ground.

To develop an EVP or talent strategy, I had to understand a new organization quickly: how the business worked, what leadership cared about, what employees actually experienced, what competitors were saying and what different talent audiences valued.

I led employee listening, senior executive interviews, market research and competitive analysis, then translated those inputs into employer positioning and activation strategies leaders could actually use.

Along the way, I also built Universum’s activation business from approximately $30K to more than $1M in annual revenue within one year, achieved 120% of annual sales targets and maintained approximately 90% client retention.

My Approach

Start with the problem. Then build the system around it.

  1. 01

    Listen before you position

    The best employer brands start with evidence — employee listening, leadership priorities, market intelligence, candidate behavior and workforce data.

  2. 02

    Connect promise to experience

    An EVP has little value if the candidate experience, culture and employee reality tell a different story.

  3. 03

    Build for scale

    I think beyond campaigns to operating models, governance, technology, measurement and capabilities that make the strategy sustainable.

  4. 04

    Measure what changed

    Awareness matters. But so do applications, engagement, adoption, candidate behavior, reputation, efficiency and business outcomes.

The work I’m typically brought in to lead.

  • 01Employer Brand Strategy
  • 02Employee Value Proposition
  • 03Talent Attraction Strategy
  • 04Recruitment Marketing
  • 05Employee Experience
  • 06Culture Strategy & Activation
  • 07Candidate Experience
  • 08Employee Listening & Insights
  • 09Executive Stakeholder Alignment
  • 10Inclusion & Belonging Strategy
  • 11Global Content & Campaign Strategy
  • 12AI-Enabled Employee Experiences

Agency perspective. In-house ownership. Global scale.

  1. Universum

    Head of Activation

    Advised Fortune 500 companies on employer brand, EVP and talent strategy.

  2. PepsiCo

    Global Campus Employer Brand & Diversity Engagement

    Applied audience strategy and performance marketing to global early-talent attraction.

  3. Nasdaq

    Senior Director → Global Head of Employer Brand & Culture

    Built and scaled employer brand, talent attraction, culture and employee experience capabilities globally.

View Full Experience

The best employer brands aren’t invented. They’re uncovered, built and experienced.

I’m interested in leadership opportunities where employer brand, talent attraction, employee experience and culture can become a genuine competitive advantage.

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Based in New York City · Open to global leadership opportunities