With a well-established career in recruitment spanning in-house and consultancy, Sarah Cooper is a Global HR Director, sitting on the HRLT responsible for HR Technology including Workday, HR Analytics, Reporting and Insight, Risk, Governance and Talent Acquisition for Rentokil Initial Plc.
Who is a global leader in support services, operating in c.90 countries and employing over 68,500 people.
What’s a recent professional achievement of yours that you are proud of?
I am proud of rolling out a global referral and internal job platform that now equates to 30% of our hires, improving retention and career pathways of our colleagues with c.7000 internal applications alone in 2025.
As well as a global career site personalising experience for over 1.5 million visitors from all over the world in 24.
I am also pleased to be piloting AI skills first assessments in 3 countries during 25 removing the use of CVs and changing hiring manager behaviour.
I am also happy to be broadening my own skills taking on new responsibilities outside of pure TA arena.
What is your prediction for the future of the TA industry?
The TA industry will continue to transform, ways of working will change and roles will develop. However, human judgement and human relationships will continue to be at the heart of the value provided and essential to success.
What projects are you planning on working on in 2026?
Continuing the skills journey with further pilots and bring the end to end talent function together, so we assess and deploy external and internal talent with synergy.