Eric Gilpin

Eric Gilpin is senior VP of Enterprise at Upwork, one of the largest human cloud firms, but his staffing industry roots run deep. Prior to joining Upwork last year, Gilpin spent nearly 16 years at jobs website CareerBuilder, including 12 years on accounts in the staffing and recruitment industry.

Gilpin began his career in 2000 at Headhunter.net, which was acquired by CareerBuilder in 2003. “I joined at the rise of the Internet and watched traditional newspaper advertising get disrupted by the Internet,” Gilpin says. The online ecosystem continued to evolve, with other firms such as LinkedIn, Indeed and Glassdoor joining the fray.

What accomplishment is he most proud of? It’s the relationships he has built over those years, both externally — he knows everyone on Staffing Industry Analysts’ Staffing 100 list — and internally, helping train people and move them forward. Gilpin managed a team of more than 200 at CareerBuilder.

What motivates him? “I think, one, I’m really motivated by my team’s success,” Gilpin says. But he’s also very passionate about the talent ecosystem. “I believe that people, more than anything, are the ones that make the world go ’round,” he says.