Amazon’s Talent Revolution: Rajeev Sharma champions moonshot thinking, human-centric AI, and legacy-building at People Matters TechHR India 2026

In a world where talent is the true competitive advantage, Rajeev Sharma, Director of Talent Acquisition for Emerging Markets, APAC & LATAM at Amazon, had a clear message:  think big, build lasting culture, and redefine what’s possible for the future of work. 

Sharma’s vision, rooted in audacious goals and an unwavering commitment to inclusion, technology, and psychological safety, is reshaping not only Amazon but the broader talent acquisition landscape.

From Scale to Impact: Rethinking the talent function

Sharma began by challenging the conventional wisdom of talent acquisition. "It's not about how many people we hire, it's about the impact we create," he asserted. His team spans 20 countries and is responsible for a third of Amazon's global hiring. He shared examples of Amazon's global impact: hiring 40,000 military veterans and 11,000 military spouses, enabling people with disabilities, launching Amazon Quick across 100+ cities in India in record time, and running the rekindle programme for women returning from career breaks. "We are proud to have received the National Award for the Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the President of India," he noted, underscoring Amazon's commitment to underrepresented cohorts.

But his focus was clear: the real story lies in how impact is achieved, not just numbers.

The Owner’s Mindset: Beyond service provider mentality

The keynote pivoted to a radical mindset shift. Many HR and talent teams, he observed, operate as service providers, measuring inputs such as time-to-hire and roles filled. But true transformation, Sharma argued, comes from adopting an "owner’s mindset", setting moonshot goals and working backwards from the customer. “Set audacious goals, even when you know you might not achieve them,” he urged, referencing Amazon’s practice of working back from the customer and operationalising with the right mechanisms.

He illustrated this approach with the story of a 200-member recruiting services team tasked with significantly reducing their cost to serve. Sharma pushed them to rethink their universe, leading to a strategic expansion and reorganisation that delivered substantial results far beyond what incremental improvements could have achieved. The lesson: bold thinking and quality-centric strategies unlock exponential value.

Scaling Bold: From crisis to global capability

When the COVID-19 pandemic created a shortage of committed recruiters in North America, rather than pursuing incremental growth, his team piloted a small recruiting unit in India to support North American hiring. The experiment's success led to rapid scaling, growing into a global recruiting operation spanning multiple countries, delivering significant high-impact results, and raising the bar for quality.

Strategic pillars and outcome-driven goals: The Amazon way

To drive focused transformation, he set up strategic pillars for areas like quality of hire, productivity at scale, and candidate & hiring manager experience. Each pillar has an executive sponsor and a "two-pizza team" empowered to make quick decisions, all powered by recruitment technology and AI.

He emphasised outcome-driven goals over traditional input metrics. "Did we hire the right quality to transform the business? That's the question," he said. The talent function, he insisted, must be viewed through a long-term, strategic lens, by building infrastructure and solving systemic issues to achieve sustainable impact.

His vision for the future of hiring is friction-free for candidates and data-driven for hiring managers. With AI and recruitment technology taking over administrative tasks and candidate screening, recruiters are freed to become talent partners and business advisors. The transactional recruiter, he made clear, is a thing of the past. The future belongs to those who can understand the business deeply, consult on talent strategy, and influence hiring decisions at a strategic level.

But he was quick to address the fears around AI disruption. "Human moments are here to stay. Technology enables you, but it does not take away the human element," he reassured. Storytelling, culture-building, and personal interaction remain the recruiter's currency, especially as candidates seek purpose and authentic connections.

Culture and Change Management: The engine of transformation

"At the centre of it is the people who drive change. It's the culture that's going to transform the way we operate."

This was the thread running through the entire session. His argument: you can have the best strategy, the best technology, the most ambitious goals. None of it lands without a culture that gives people permission to think big, fail safely, and own outcomes.

He talked about psychological safety as a prerequisite for bold thinking. Teams that fear failure optimise for safety. They deliver incremental results. Teams that feel safe to challenge, experiment, and propose audacious ideas deliver exponential outcomes.

He stressed the importance of change management, warning against "they versus us" mindsets. His team invested heavily in enabling frontline managers to own the message, upskilling recruiters for a tech-enabled future. Listening to employees, he argued, is as crucial as the next AI opportunity.

Sharma closed with a powerful challenge: "Are you running your function like a business or a service provider? Are you thinking long-term, setting moonshot goals, and building the right culture and psychological safety?"

His keynote was a manifesto for the future of HR and talent acquisition everywhere. Delivered to a packed audience at People Matters TechHR India 2026, the message is clear: the future belongs to those who dare to think big, harness technology for good, and put people at the heart of every transformation.