Anneli Scopazzi: AI-Driven Talent Management and Upskilling Strategies for High-Growth Ventures

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Anneli Scopazzi, CEO and Founder of Boulevard Recruiting. With a background rooted in fast-growth startup environments, Anneli has become an authority on matching world-class talent to the right opportunities—particularly in an era brimming with AI-driven disruption.

Expect a compelling conversation about how technology is changing the face of recruiting, the critical importance of upskilling and reskilling in today’s competitive market, and what early-stage ventures need to keep in mind while scaling with AI.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• We work with early-stage startups, starting with series B but it’s moved down to series C when the market crashed, but we now sit in series A where we’re hoping to scale with those clients for the next couple of years to be the first recruiters on the ground, working very closely with the founders. As the companies start to scale and hire internal recruiters the we’ll work very closely with them too.
• Covid benefitted us in vary big way as a remote company founded in Q4 2019, I was fiercely committed to working remotely, it was the number one driver of the company, the name Boulevard was chosen because it represents remote work. When Covid happened, everyone had to figure out how to work remotely and now companies are accustomed to it and how it works.
• AI is something that felt scary for a minute back when ChatGPT was released and there was all this appearance of fast acceleration. But, working in tech, we’ve known this has been going on for years. I wanted to be the first to adopt and work with these early tech companies, you don’t want to be the company that doesn’t survive the extinction event if you can’t work it out.
• In the recruiting landscape I haven’t seen any amazing AI solutions just yet. There are some things that make us more efficient, but we’re in a bit of a safe space because of the relationship focus, which is really hard to replicate with AI technology. The more exciting thing is working with the AI companies and seeing them get funded massively. It’s an exciting space to be in.

BEST MOMENTS

‘I’ve loved the French language and Paris since I was very young and I didn’t want to name my business after myself. What I love about Boulevard is that it’s of French origin but it’s very recognisable around the world.’

‘What excites me about working with early-stage startups is that you have the ability to do more than you’re qualified to do.’

‘A lot of my personal growth has been very self-taught. That’s been very liberating and rewarding but also can be very painful at times learning through mistakes.’

‘There’s a lot of administrative work in recruiting, in-bound applications have surged dramatically in the last couple of years globally. The recruiting tools we’re seeing are sorting through profiles faster and narrowing it down to a shorter list for the human to review.’

ABOUT THE GUEST

Anneli Scopazzi is the CEO and Founder of Boulevard Recruiting, a boutique San Francisco-based agency that specializes in matching startups with world-class talent in engineering, product, and beyond. 

She began her career in accounting before transitioning into recruiting about seven years ago, initially stepping into a 100% commission role at a boutique agency and later being recruited to Palantir. 

This non-traditional path enabled Anneli to grow quickly in leadership, ultimately becoming Head of Talent at Figma, where she played a key role in tripling the company’s headcount t