David Windley

David Windley is a veteran human-resources and talent-acquisition executive with more than three decades of leadership experience across technology, and an active angel investor since 2016. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Management from San Diego State University (1985) and an MBA from San Francisco State University's College of Business (1988). Earlier in his career he held executive HR roles at Silicon Graphics, Intuit, and Microsoft (where he held the company's number-two HR job), and went on to serve as Chief Human Resources Officer at both Fusion-io and Yahoo!.

In September 2014, Windley joined IQTalent Partners as President, leading the Nashville-based talent-acquisition and executive-search firm through a period of rapid growth and helping scale it into a roughly $50 million business. IQTalent Partners merged with The Caldwell Partners International in 2020, and Windley continued as President of the IQTalent unit and served on Caldwell's board. On October 6, 2023, he stepped down as President of IQTalent and resigned from the Caldwell board.

Windley is now CEO and Executive Chairman of HootRecruit (formerly IQRecruit), an AI-powered talent-sourcing platform that parses job descriptions, surfaces qualified candidates from public profiles, and scores them — built on a "human-in-the-loop" philosophy intended to enhance recruiter judgment while mitigating bias. He is a frequent voice on ethical, diversity-conscious AI in hiring.

Beyond operating roles, Windley is a seasoned public- and nonprofit-board director. He sits on the boards of DHI Group, Inc. (Dice; joined February 2019, Compensation Committee Chair), Tennant Company (Compensation Committee Chair, appointed 2016), AARP, and PowerToFly, is a Governance Fellow with the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), and is a past Board Chair of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). He was named to Savoy Magazine's 2021 list of Most Influential Black Corporate Directors.

• Invests as an individual angel, with a startup-ecosystem track record beginning in 2016, concentrated at the seed stage.
• Sector tilt mirrors his operating expertise: enterprise applications, HR/recruiting technology, and AI-driven talent tools — areas where he can add value as a former CHRO and current talent-tech founder.
• Publicly champions ethical, bias-aware AI in hiring and "human-in-the-loop" design; founders building responsible, diversity-conscious talent products align with his stated worldview.
• Brings operator and board-level credibility (Yahoo!, Microsoft, Intuit; DHI Group/Dice, Tennant, SHRM) rather than a fund mandate, so value-add skews toward HR/go-to-market and governance.