BD Sales & Business Development Recruiter Summit 2026 Schedule

The Sales & BD Recruiter Summit 2026 is a week-long virtual event (January 26 – February 2, 2026) hosted by the Elite Recruiter Podcast team. Below is a detailed day-by-day schedule of the summit. Each session listing includes the time (converted to Eastern Time, ET), session title (or “Details coming soon” if not yet announced), speaker(s), and key bio highlights for the speaker(s).

Registartion for all the live session is FREE.  Regiseter NOW: https://bd-sales-recruiter-2026.heysummit.com/ 

Monday, January 26, 2026 (Day 1)

  • 9:00 AM – 10:20 AM ET: 7-Figure Sales: Proven BD Strategies to Close $1m+ – Julia Arpag (CEO & Founder, Aligned Recruitment). Highlight: Julia launched her tech recruitment firm in August 2023 and closed over $1 million in new business within the first two years. 

  • 10:30 AM – 11:50 AM ET: Beyond Direct Hire: How to Sell Contract Staffing to Your Existing Clients – Jon Davis (CEO, Signature Back Office Solutions) and Dawson Merry (Sales Director, Signature Back Office Solutions). Highlights: Jon is a 30-year staffing veteran and CEO of Signature Back Office, an Employer of Record provider serving over 500 staffing agencies. He previously scaled a recruiting firm to 2,000+ consultants over his career. Dawson leads sales at Signature Back Office Solutions, helping agencies add contract staffing revenue streams. 

  • 12:00 PM – 1:20 PM ET: How I Built a 7-Figure Recruiting Business With a Tiny Tech Stack and Zero Book of Business – Sarah Englade (Founder, Monarch Talent Solutions). Highlight: Sarah has nearly a decade of recruiting experience and was a top producer at global firms, successfully placing over 2,800 candidates from 2012–2020, before launching her own boutique firm in 2020. Now she runs a 7-figure recruitment business focused on senior-level placements in Houston

  • 1:30 PM – 2:50 PM ET: Own the Room (and the Feed): How to Show Up Where Your Clients Can’t Miss You – Sharon Bondurant (Founder & CEO, The Finders). Highlight: Sharon started The Finders in 1998 from her home and over 25 years grew it into an Inc. 5000 recruiting firm that has impacted over 5,000 careers and generated $45+ million in revenue. She now coaches entrepreneurial recruiters on becoming true CEOs of their businesses

  • 3:00 PM – 4:20 PM ET: Mastering LinkedIn Inbound: The 1-2 Punch of Automation & Content – Clark Willcox (Founder, Digital Recruiter program). Highlight: Clark is a digital prospecting expert with 9+ years in recruiting. His Digital Recruiter training program has generated over $2 million in additional billings for recruiters since 2021 by improving their pipelines and productivity

Tuesday, January 27, 2026 (Day 2)

  • 9:00 AM – 10:20 AM ET: AI Meets Business Development: How Recruiters Are Winning More Work in 2026 – Jordan Shlosberg (Founder & CEO, Atlas). Highlight: Jordan is an AI-driven tech founder who previously founded proSapient, raising a $10 million Series A and growing it to a 300-person, $40M revenue company Now as CEO of Atlas, he’s transforming agency recruitment with generative AI and automation

  • 10:30 AM – 11:50 AM ET: Details coming soon – Mike Mello (Founder, SimpleSide AI). Highlight: Mike is a former top-producing staffing sales leader who walked away from a $20M+ book of business to launch SimpleSide AI, a next-gen agency leveraging AI. He now helps staffing firms boost performance through automation and AI-driven strategy. (Session title to be announced; live broadcast on Jan 27, 3:30 PM GMT)

  • 12:00 PM – 1:20 PM ET: Blueprint to $1M – Conor Kline & Jake Price (Co-Founders, Pin). Highlight: Conor and Jake are part of the team at Pin, a digital recruiting assistant platform that automates sourcing, outreach, interview scheduling, and more. Together they have developed a proven system (“Blueprint to $1M”) for recruiters to generate $1M+ in billings by leveraging automation and analytics.

  • 1:30 PM – 2:50 PM ET: Unlocking Your Potential: How to Leverage 4 Mindsets for Sales Success – Tom Erb (President, Tallann Resources). Highlight: Tom is a 25+ year staffing industry veteran and one of the top consultants and trainers in recruiting. He has advised over 1,000 staffing firms since founding Tallann Resources in 2010, authored Winning the Staffing Sales Game, and is a sought-after speaker on staffing sales strategies

  • 3:00 PM – 4:20 PM ET: Stop Spray-and-Pray Forever: The 3-Phase System That Builds Dominant Recruiting Territories – Keely Flood (Founder, The Honest Salesperson). Highlight: Keely is a multi President’s Club award-winner in SaaS and staffing sales who generated over $7 million in revenue as a producer. In 2023 he founded The Honest Salesperson to coach agency owners on scaling to 7-figure billings; in the past year, his clients added over $2 million in new business using his 3-phase mindset system

Wednesday, January 28, 2026 (Day 3)

  • 12:00 PM – 1:20 PM ET: Breaking Growth Barriers: How We Scaled Our Staffing Firm by Tens of Millions in 2025 – Steve Farrell (COO, Your Employment Solutions). Highlight: Steve is the COO of a $70+ million light-industrial staffing firm with seven branches. Under his leadership, YES achieved double-digit growth by unifying sales, marketing, and ops into a single “revenue engine” and expanding into new divisions. He also hosts The Staffing Playbook podcast. 

  • 1:30 PM – 2:50 PM ET: Selling to MSPs – Kim Henderson (Managing Director, Cobalt Compass Solutions). Highlight: Kim is the former co-founder of a $100 million staffing agency and now leads Cobalt Compass, a consultancy training staffing firms on enterprise sales (including how to win business through Managed Service Providers). She leverages 25+ years of experience in staffing leadership and specialization in SOW (Statement of Work) solutions to help agencies build strategic client relationships

  • 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM ET: The Execution Gap: Why Your Notebooks Are Full and Your Pipeline Is Empty – David Stephen Patterson (“DSP”) (Founder, The Digital Headhunter). Highlight: David is a 20+ year executive search veteran turned digital marketing coach. As Chief Growth Officer at The Digital Headhunter, he’s helped 500+ search firms “punch above their weight class” by adopting his Lighthouse Method™ marketing system He also founded a community of 16,000 recruiters and co-hosts Headhunters LIVE, focusing on omnipresent content and relevancy. 

Thursday, January 29, 2026 (Day 4)

  • 1:30 PM – 2:50 PM ET: How to Stop Relying on Legacy Clients and Referrals in 2026 – Alexis Meschi (CIO & Integrator, Ora Marketing). Highlight: Alexis is a branding and marketing strategist who co-founded Ora Marketing to help recruiting firms generate inbound leads with “done-for-you” content. She previously built a career in brand strategy – working with hundreds of entrepreneurs on personal branding – before partnering with Donnie Gupton to launch Ora Marketing and turn recruiters’ online presence into a client acquisition engine

  • 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM ET: Details coming soon – Tricia Tamkin & Jason Thibeault (Co-Founders, Moore eSSentials). Highlight: Tricia and Jason are renowned recruitment trainers who have spent over a decade developing acclaimed training programs and coaching some of the industry’s top-producing recruiters. Tricia has spoken on the most prominent industry stages for 14 years and together they run Moore eSSentials, providing coaching on everything from sourcing and business development to AI for recruiters

Friday, January 30, 2026 (Day 5)

  • 9:00 AM – 10:20 AM ET: AI-Powered BD Strategies for Retained Search – Jordan Taylor, Sarah Chester-Nelson & Louise Archer (Team from Retrained Search). Highlight: Louise Archer (Founder of Retrained Search) and her colleagues Jordan and Sarah specialize in teaching recruiters how to win retained search business. Louise is a retained search coach who has developed AI-powered business development frameworks for agencies, and Sarah Chester-Nelson serves as an AI Marketing Coach & Director at Retrained Search. Jordan Taylor co-founded Retrained Search and brings deep expertise in leveraging technology for high-level BD in executive search. Together, they’ll share how AI tools can drive consistent retained search client acquisition. 

  • 10:30 AM – 11:50 AM ET: Details coming soon – Greg Fischer (Founder, Well Oiled Machine). Highlight: Greg is a recruitment process outsourcing and offshoring expert. Before launching Well Oiled Machine, he spent a decade scaling a staffing agency to $1.4M EBITDA with 40 employees (40% of them in offshore roles). Now he consults other recruiting firms on building high-performance offshore teams and efficient processes to scale profitably. 

  • 12:00 PM – 1:20 PM ET: Details coming soon – Sam Kuehnle (VP of Marketing, Loxo). Highlight: Sam is a marketing leader in the recruiting tech space (former Refine Labs strategist) who heads marketing at Loxo, a top Talent Intelligence platform. He specializes in demand generation and has developed data-driven outreach strategies that tie marketing efforts directly to recruiter revenue. In this session he’ll share how top recruiters can align their outreach with marketing tactics to boost ROI. 

  • 1:30 PM – 2:50 PM ET: How to Create Irresistible Sales Content That Converts (Without Having to Figure Out What to Write About) – Diane Prince (Founder, Diane Prince Co.). Highlight: Diane founded her first staffing agency at home, scaled it to 8-figure revenue in 6 years, and sold it for $28 million to a public company. She has since co-founded and exited multiple companies. Now as an executive coach, she helps recruiting firm owners grow and generate recurring revenue without burning out, often by delegating and productizing their services (she even launched an offshore support solution for staffing firms)

Monday, February 2, 2026 (Day 6)

  • 9:00 AM – 9:45 AM ET: The Predictable Client Acquisition System for Recruiters: Build Pipeline with Smarter & Consistent Outreach – Laurie Guillodo (Founder & CEO, SplendUp). Highlight: Laurie is the co-founder of SplendUp, an AI-powered business development platform that helps recruiting firms turn their “cold” candidate pools into new clients and placements. She recently raised €500k for SplendUp’s vision and has deep expertise in using automation and AI to create predictable outreach systems for recruiters

  • 12:00 PM – 12:45 PM ET: Scaling Your Book of Business: How Top Recruiters Turn Outreach into Revenue – Rebekah Brown (Account Executive, SourceWhale). Highlight: Rebekah is a former recruiter who now advises staffing teams on optimizing their outreach through technology. At SourceWhale (a leading recruiting outreach automation platform), she partners with recruiting firms to streamline their email campaigns and follow-ups using AI, resulting in more client meetings and placements She will share practical tips on consistent outreach tactics that drive revenue. 

  • 1:00 PM – 1:45 PM ET: The Future of Recruiting is Connected: Inside the AI-Powered Marketplace – Josh Nix & Matt Miller (Co-Founders, Zyve). Highlight: Matt Miller is a seasoned staffing-tech executive with 20+ years of experience who previously led a tech strategy that resulted in a $100M acquisition in the staffing industry. Now he and Josh Nix have co-founded Zyve, an AI-driven SaaS marketplace aiming to unify the entire recruiting lifecycle on one platform. They are building automated AI recruiting systems that simplify and accelerate hiring, with the vision of a fully connected ecosystem for recruiters and clients. 

Event Sponsors

This summit is proudly supported by several sponsors. Below is a list of all sponsors and a brief description of each:

  • Atlas – Atlas is an end-to-end recruiting platform built with generative AI at its core, giving recruiters a faster, smarter way to work. It automatically captures call notes, enriches candidate data, and connects all parts of the workflow so that nothing falls through the cracks – allowing recruiters to focus on closing more deals.  Atlas

  • Crelate – Founded in 2012, Crelate provides a flexible, intuitive core platform for modern talent businesses. It integrates a powerful and customizable ATS, recruiting CRM, and back-office management in one. Crelate empowers staffing agencies with the tools to make more placements, win more business, and scale their teams efficiently. Crelate 

  • Juicebox – Juicebox is the company behind PeopleGPT, an AI search engine for talent. PeopleGPT understands the specifics of who recruiters are looking for and helps discover hidden talent at scale. By unlocking “talent density” through AI, Juicebox enables recruiters to source candidates faster and more accurately. Demo Juicebox

  • Pin – Pin is a digital recruiting assistant platform that helps recruiters automate key tasks. With Pin, agencies can source candidates, send outreach, schedule interviews, and even screen resumes with an AI assistant. This all-in-one tool is designed to save recruiters time by handling routine tasks, allowing recruiters to focus on relationship-building and closing placements. Demo Pin

  • Signature Back Office Solutions – Signature Back Office is a premier Employer of Record (EOR) and back-office service provider for staffing agencies. It handles critical back-office functions – payroll funding, insurance, onboarding, compliance, etc. – so recruiters can scale contract placements without cash-flow headaches or administrative burden. Signature Back Office currently supports 500+ staffing agencies across North America in scaling their contract staffing revenue confidently.  Email Dawson Merry and let him know you are reaching out from Benjamin Mena or The Elite Recruiter Podcast: dmerry@signaturebackoffice.com 

Each of these sponsors plays a key role in supporting the summit and offers tools or services to help recruiters accelerate their business development and sales outcomes.

The BD Sales & Business Development Recruiter Summit 2026 brings together experienced recruiters, firm owners, and operators to share the strategies, systems, and lessons that are driving real business development results today.

Registration is free and includes live access to all scheduled sessions.

For those who want extended access:

  • VIP Pass – Includes full on-demand replays of all sessions so you can watch at your own pace and revisit the content as you implement.

  • Elite Recruiter Community Members – Community members receive access to summit replays along with ongoing discussions, additional resources, and future training opportunities inside the community. - https://elite-recruiters.circle.so/checkout/elite-recruiter-community 

If you plan to attend selectively or want the ability to reference sessions after the event, upgrading to VIP or joining the Elite Recruiter Community is recommended.

👉 Register to secure your spot and access options: https://bd-sales-recruiter-2026.heysummit.com/ 



About the BD Sales & Business Development Recruiter Summit 2026

The BD Sales & Business Development Recruiter Summit 2026 is a virtual recruiting conference focused on sales strategy, business development, and client acquisition for recruiters and staffing professionals.

This summit features experienced agency recruiters, executive search consultants, staffing firm owners, and recruiting technology leaders sharing practical approaches to:

  • Building predictable business development pipelines

  • Winning new clients in competitive recruiting markets

  • Selling retained search, contract staffing, and project-based work

  • Using AI and automation to support recruiter sales efforts

  • Improving inbound and outbound sales systems for recruiting firms

All sessions are designed for professionals working in agency recruiting, executive search, staffing, and talent solutions across multiple industries, including technology, government contracting, healthcare, light industrial, and professional services.

Who Should Attend

This recruiting sales summit is designed for:

  • Agency recruiters and headhunters

  • Executive search consultants

  • Staffing firm owners and founders

  • Business development leaders in recruiting

  • Sales-focused recruiters looking to grow their book of business

Topics Covered

Key topics discussed during the summit include:

  • Recruiter business development strategies

  • Sales systems and pipelines for recruiting firms

  • AI tools for recruiter sales and BD

  • LinkedIn and content-driven inbound sales for recruiters

  • Contract staffing and retained search sales models

  • Scaling recruiting firms through repeatable sales processes

By bringing together proven operators and modern recruiting platforms, the BD Sales & Business Development Recruiter Summit 2026 serves as a practical learning environment for recruiters who want to improve client acquisition, sales performance, and long-term firm growth.