I help companies make high-stakes hires and build the systems that make good hiring repeatable.
I've led 400+ hires in regulated and complex environments. Companies bring me one decision, a systems build, a leadership search, or the whole talent function.
When hiring systems are slowing recruiters down, obscuring what’s happening, or making every search harder than it should be, I help fix the underlying problem.
Ways to work together
Four ways in, depending on what you need right now. All of them have clear terms before work begins.
Not sure which one fits? Book a free 30-minute call. By the end, you'll know whether there's a fit and what the recommended next step is. What the call is and isn't ↓
Book a free callTalent Systems Architecture & Advisory
When the ATS is in place, but the workflow, visibility, or efficiency you expected isn’t showing up in practice.
Diagnose what isn’t working across your ATS, HRIS, recruiting workflows, or hiring process, design the future state, and create the roadmap to get there. Implementation support can continue through advisory, close partnership with your internal team, or specialist support for the build.
Platforms: SmartRecruiters (SAP), Greenhouse, Lever, JazzHR, Bullhorn, Paylocity, Rippling, Gem, LinkedIn Recruiter System Connect, JobTarget Programmatic, Winston AI, Indeed, Criteria assessments, including custom assessment implementations
Integrations & technologies: APIs, SFTP, native integrations, and HRIS/ATS integrations
Best for: Teams standing up a new ATS or HRIS, mid-implementation projects that have stalled, or hiring ops that have grown without intentional configuration.
AI Talent Engineer
Build practical AI workflows and automations around how your team actually hires, including reusable processes, system connections, and clear review points where human judgment still matters.
Best for: Teams piloting or scaling AI in hiring who want it built on purpose, and founders who need leverage before a full internal team.
Executive & Specialized Search
When a business-critical role needs more than another job post.
Leadership seats, business-critical hires, and specialized roles with a narrow pool. Candidates are sourced and screened, with context on fit, motivation, strengths, concerns, and what is worth testing in the interview.
Leadership: senior manager through C-level and first leadership hires in a function.
Specialized: in-house legal, GTM and revenue, healthtech and interoperability, 503B pharma and FDA-regulated manufacturing, and technical roles in regulated and complex environments.
Available for individual business-critical searches across growth-stage and established organizations. Engaged search with staged, split, or monthly fee structures.
Mission-driven organizations are especially welcome.
Fractional Head of Talent
Senior talent leadership inside your company. I support high-stakes hiring while building the systems, sourcing structure, and operational foundation recruiting needs to scale, then prepare the handoff to a full-time internal talent leader when the time is right.
Best for: Seed through Series D startups, or PE-backed companies in the first 6 to 12 months post-investment, where hiring quality is governance, not throughput.
Don't see an arrangement that quite fits? Scope and fees can be tailored to specific situations. Email Kate to scope something custom.
What this fixes
What this has looked like in practice
Multi-entity recruiting systems transformation
Architected a highly customized recruiting environment that brought multiple companies into one ATS while allowing each to operate separately behind a single external employer brand. The work included custom workflows and configurations, recruiting technology vendor management, system integrations, team onboarding, and broader recruiting-process design.
Built TA from the ground up
Built the recruiting function, including process, sourcing strategy, agency model, interview structure, reporting, and systems, while leading a team supporting high-volume nonexempt manufacturing hiring. Personally focused on specialized exempt manufacturing searches.
57 → 20 days
Reduced sales time-to-hire from 57 days to 20 while improving the operating process behind hiring, not just the speed of individual searches.
Who you're working with
Sometimes companies have a hiring problem. More often, they have a decision problem that shows up as a hiring problem.
I'm Kate Rose. Nearly a decade in talent acquisition across agency, in-house, and leadership roles: 100+ client searches on the agency side, go-to-market talent at Redox, a VC-backed healthtech company, where I cut sales time-to-hire from 57 days to 20 and delivered 75+ hires, and most recently Head of Talent Acquisition at SCA Pharma, a PE-backed 600-person 503B facility under FDA oversight, where I built the talent function from the ground up. That experience also includes creating and leading a candidate experience committee at a SaaS startup.
My systems experience is hands-on. I've configured and integrated ATS and HRIS platforms, worked with regulated data through APIs and JSON, and built AI-assisted workflows with the checks that catch where they're confidently wrong. When a problem spans hiring and the systems around it, I can hold both.
The common thread is regulated or complex environments where hiring mistakes cost more because the talent pool is narrower and the stakes are higher. If you think of this as HR, you're mostly right: it's the talent and hiring side of HR and the systems it runs on, not payroll, benefits, or employee relations. When you need those, I'll point you to people who do them well.
What the work changes
The work should leave something behind: a hiring system your team can run and better decisions when the stakes are high.
Systems that make hiring repeatable
Decisions and searches that hold up
What the intake call is and isn't
Every engagement above, from a systems architecture project to a leadership search to the fractional retainer, starts with the same free 30-minute intake call.
Ground rules
Commitment terms vary by engagement. Retainers have a 3-month minimum, then either side can end with 30 days notice. Talent Systems Architecture & Advisory and AI Talent Engineer run month-to-month from day one, delivered in scheduled working blocks. Executive & Specialized Search is engaged and scoped per role, with the fee structure agreed before work starts.
For larger engagements, Relio may bring in trusted specialists for systems support, sourcing, research, documentation, implementation, or other areas of expertise. The delivery team and responsibilities are agreed before work begins, with Relio maintaining responsibility for the engagement and quality of the work.
From people who have partnered with me
David Millsaps · Marketing AI for Healthcare
If this sounds like your situation, let's talk.
Send me the role, search, decision, or systems problem you're working through. I'll tell you whether I'm the right fit and what I'd recommend next.
Relio keeps consulting capacity intentionally limited so engagements stay senior-led and close to the work.
Email: kate@relioengine.com
Book a 30-min intake call: calendar link →