Top Employers Institute’s new CEO: Successful leaders lean into intentional work design, not new HR initiatives

Adrian Seligman has stepped into the CEO role at Top Employers Institute, a HR certification, benchmarking and advisory firm on a mission to help employers around the world become great places to work.

Seligman has two decades of experience in the HR space, including eight years as Chief Commercial Officer at Top Employers Institute, and he is ready to bring this expertise to the top job.

UNLEASH sits down with Seligman to find out his plans as CEO, and how Top Employers Institute is stepping up to continue to support HR leaders make better decisions in the uncertain AI reality.

Top Employers Institute on enabling HR strategic decision making

Top Employers Institute sees itself as different from vendors in the busy HR tech market: “We are a certifier and independently validate HR practices for large enterprises in 131 countries and regions,” Seligman explains.

This means Top Employers Institute takes a step back from the innovations in the HR tech space – “we are more stable” – and act as advisors to the HR leaders undergoing transformation and continuous evolution.

Therefore, Top Employers Institute works with HR teams on a three-year basis and supports them in their journey to becoming a great employer.

Data is a key part of this support. Since the HR firm certifies 2,500 customers globally, its data set provides an “amazing read on what good looks like”.

This provides a strong foundation for HR leaders to audit their businesses “and identify where targeted action will have the greatest impact.”

Seligman’s ambition is for Top Employers Institute to level up its work here. His view is that HR currently lacks an “array of playbooks helping HR leaders invest in the right things”.

Adrian Seligman, CEO, Top Employers Institute.

Now he’s at the helm of Top Employers Institute, Seligman wants the organization to be more data and customer value obsessed.

We really want to make sure that the benchmarking data and insights we’re providing is so compelling to HR leaders that it enables them to make strategic decisions that will enhance their organizational performance,” adds Seligman.

Top Employers Institute also wants to incorporate input from academics and CHROs to bring “even more customer value to the HR community.”

What is the ‘next practices frontier’ for HR leaders?

“The pace of change is faster than ever,” notes Seligman. Therefore, Top Employers Institute is not just focused on supporting HR leaders with best practices now, but is helping them prepare for what’s coming down the line.

This involves “thinking on what’s the safe investment that you can make now [to drive] profit growth, revenue growth and market share growth as well, versus what are we doing tomorrow?”

Top Employers Institute’s World of Work Trends 2026 report found “the next practices frontier isn’t about new initiatives per se, but about intentional design,” Seligman tells UNLEASH.

He adds: “HR leaders at high-performing organizations are stepping back and making clearer choices about how work is structured, where AI adds value, and where human judgement and connection really matter.

Organizations seeing the strongest outcomes are being explicit about where AI accelerates work, and where human judgement, trust and connection remain essential.”

To better support HR decision-making now and into the future, top of Seligman’s priority list as CEO of Top Employers Institute is innovation.

Top Employers Institute is stable from a tech point of view, but it is on a mission to bring “product and digital teams even closer together to accelerate how we test, build and deploy new capabilities for clients.”

The focus is “ensuring our architecture evolves in line with our ambitions.”

The HR firm is undergoing a culture shift – transitioning from “purely being a certifier…we’re increasingly building the mindset and capabilities of a data and insight-led business” to help HR leaders make the decisions that will support the growth of their people and their organization.