Divya Shivaprasad

Co-Founder

San Francisco, California, United States16 yrs 10 mos experience

Key Highlights

Expert in building talent-dense organizations.
Led hiring for top AI/ML teams at major tech companies.
Specialized in organizational design and leadership development.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a strategic leader in AI/ML talent acquisition and organizational development.

Contact

Skills

Core Skills

Talent ManagementOrganizational DesignExecutive Hiring

Other Skills

Team BuildingOrganizational CulturePeople OperationsLeadership DevelopmentRecruiting ProcessesInterview StructuresPerformance ManagementCompensation StructureStrategic HiringConsultingEmployee EngagementTeamworkCreativity and InnovationOrganizational EffectivenessCoaching

About

The strongest cultures are built on clarity and courage: the courage to commit, and the courage to evolve. I build companies from 0->1 by designing the teams, systems, and culture that enable breakthrough work. As Founding Head of People & Talent at Essential AI, I focus on building highly talent-dense organizations and leading company-wide initiatives across organizational design, people operations, leadership development, fundraising strategy, and cross-functional execution - ensuring clarity, momentum, and alignment at every stage of growth. I partner directly with Founders and Technical Leaders to drive organizational clarity, scale thoughtfully, and advance our mission with conviction. Having led hiring and built high-performing talent engines for AI/ML engineering and research teams behind game-changing products at Amazon, Netflix, Apple, and Airbnb, I set a high bar for talent density and execution.

Experience

16 yrs 10 mos

Total Experience

2 yrs 6 mos

Average Tenure

2 yrs

Current Experience

Essential ai

Head of People & Talent

May 2024 – Present · 2 yrs · San Francisco Bay Area · On-site

Essential AI is all you need. 1st and sole People and Talent Hire, partnering with the CEO, and co-founder Ashish Vaswani (co-creator of Transformers) to build and scale Frontier AI Company. Employee #12.
0→1 Talent Function: Architected and executed end-to-end talent strategy. Recruited across Research Science & Engineering, Infrastructure, Optimizer Research, Forward Deployed Engineering, and Senior Leadership roles - scaling the company with a deliberate focus on talent density over headcount.
Hiring Bar & Systems: Built recruiting processes, interview structures, and interviewer calibration training in close partnership with founders, leaders, and researchers. Designed for signal over volume, ensuring every step surfaced candidates who were a genuine technical and cultural fit.
Leadership Alignment & Retention: Built new hire onboarding and ongoing engagement practices to retain and grow a capable, talent-dense team. Handled sensitive employee situations, supported cross-functional operations, and worked with leadership to build culture and alignment as the team scaled.
People Systems & Operations: Built the company’s performance framework and compensation structure from scratch, enabling consistent, equitable decisions under tight resource constraints.
Fundraising, Company Narrative & Employer Brand: Partnered with the CEO and leaders to build company website copy, internal memos, board materials, and investor pitch materials - to shape the narrative, highlight company milestones and goals across broader eco-systems.

Team BuildingOrganizational CulturePeople OperationsLeadership DevelopmentTalent ManagementOrganizational Design

Beemarvel

Founder, AI/ML Talent @ BeeMarvel

Apr 2023 – Jun 2024 · 1 yr 2 mos · San Francisco Bay Area · Remote

Founded BeeMarvel as an Executive Search provider focused on helping founders and startups scale their organizations by building foundational frameworks to build 0-1 teams.
Specialized Focus: AI/ML Companies; leadership coaching and talent assessments.

Talent ManagementExecutive HiringStrategic HiringConsultingEmployee Engagement

Airbnb

Sr Manager, Tech Hiring for ML, Core Engineering & Mobile

Jul 2022 – Jul 2023 · 1 yr · San Francisco Bay Area · Hybrid

As Sr Manager, Tech Recruiting I led a stunning team of Recruiters and cross-functional Sourcing partners to build scalable processes and apply unique hiring strategies to scale Engineering Orgs.

TeamworkEmployee EngagementTalent Management

Netflix

Principal Talent Partner, AI/ML, Data, Research and Engineering

Apr 2021 – Jul 2022 · 1 yr 3 mos · Los Gatos, California, United States · On-site

By partnering with the VPs of Data Science Research and Engineering Orgs, I worked cross-functionally across leadership to forecast business needs while executing, managing, and building hiring and growth plans end-to-end. I was responsible for building teams that are core to the growth, success, and innovation at Netflix. Specialized Focus: Leadership Hiring, AI/ML and Research, Data Science and Engineering Hiring.

TeamworkEmployee EngagementTalent Management

Apple

Principal Talent Lead, AI/ML, Evals, Research and Engineering

May 2018 – Apr 2021 · 2 yrs 11 mos · San Francisco Bay Area

Principal TA Partner for various groups including Apple Media Products - Search and Recommendation (AI/ML and Research), Sports - TV Apps (iOS, UI and Full Stack), Product Management for Apple Media Products, and Data Science teams in Evaluations.
Strategic Hiring and Development: Led a small team of sourcing partners. Built talent strategies to bring in highly sought-after skill sets and hired across Executive Level talent to Sr ICs in Research & Engineering while executing and revamping hiring practices to enable long-term growth and health of organizations.
Bootstrapped Start-up Teams within Special Projects.

TeamworkEmployee EngagementTalent Management

Amazon

2 roles

Sr Manager, Recruiting - Amazon Selection and Catalog Systems, Last Mile Tech (AI/ML, Engineering)

Promoted

Mar 2016 – Apr 2018 · 2 yrs 1 mo · Greater Seattle Area

Sr Manager supporting technical organizations spanning multiple countries globally.
Specialized Focus: AI/ML, Research, Engineering, and Leadership Hiring
I managed a team of Recruiters and Client Leads in this role. Partnered cross-functionally across the University, Science, and Leadership Hiring Teams. Managed hiring demand by collaborating with the VPs, Directors, Hiring Managers, HRBPs, Global Recruiting Partners, and Finance on Talent Acquisition needs.

TeamworkEmployee EngagementTalent Management