The team
The People Who Run Your Search
The people who run your search at Digitalent, the AI/ML executive search firm. Digitalent has made 500+ AI and machine learning placements since January 2021, across the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. The person who takes your brief is the person who runs it through to offer.
Founder
Chris Morrow
Chris Morrow founded Digitalent in 2017 and leads searches in the United States and the United Kingdom, working across UK and US hours.
In recruitment since August 2005, sixteen of those years in software recruitment, and working exclusively on AI/ML since 2021. AWS Certified AI Practitioner, and a BSc in Information Systems from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.
Originally from Glasgow, educated in England, and a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and Australia.
Much of Chris's work is with founders at tier-one VC-backed startups, building founding teams and early senior hires: first engineers at companies still in stealth, through to whole AI functions built from the leader down.
He has been interviewed by CNN on AI and the future of graduate work, quoted in the UK press including The Guardian, and has appeared on dozens of podcasts. He also builds with Claude Code daily, which is where the firm's view on AI-native engineering comes from: it is easier to assess how somebody works when you work the same way.
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/chrismorrow
Co-Founder of Digitalent Australia
Dillan Leslie-Rowe
Dillan Leslie-Rowe co-founded Digitalent Australia in 2018 and runs every Australian search personally, in Australian hours.
Dillan leads Digitalent Australia, covering Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, the Gold Coast and beyond.
Dillan's Australian book now runs to 100+ AI and machine learning placements, from founding hires at seed-stage startups through to building out scale-up AI teams.
He is a director and co-founder of Digitalent Australia Pty Ltd, the Australian operating company.
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dillanleslierowe
How it works in practice
The person who takes your brief runs it through to offer
There is no handover between the conversation about the role and the shortlist that comes back.
Whoever you speak to first is the person who maps the market, makes the approaches, sits in the first-stage interviews and handles the offer. The brief does not get written up and passed to somebody else, which is why what you say in the kickoff call still shapes the shortlist three weeks later.
We work only on AI and machine learning, across 7 areas: AI/ML Engineering, Data Science, Forward Deployed Engineering, Agentic AI, Software Engineering (AI), Research and Robotics. That list is not exhaustive and it grows, so if what you are hiring for sits just outside it, ask. What we will not do is take a brief that is really something else and let you find that out a month later.
FAQ
Working with us: frequently asked questions
- What is Digitalent?
- Digitalent is a specialist AI/ML executive search firm. We place senior AI, machine learning and research leaders and individual contributors into VC-backed startups from seed to Series C, and into established companies building AI capability, across the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. 500+ AI/ML placements since January 2021.
- What roles do you place?
- Three kinds of hire. Executive and leadership appointments such as Head of AI, VP of Machine Learning and Director of AI Engineering. Founding-level hires: founding research engineers, founding forward deployed engineers and founding AI engineers, the first technical hire a company makes in a new area. And senior individual contributors across applied ML, research, ML infrastructure, agentic AI, computer vision and robotics.
- How quickly can you deliver a shortlist?
- Brief to shortlist is approx. one week. Brief to offer is approx. three weeks for a permanent (full-time) hire and approx. one week for a contract hire.
Want to talk it through?
Tell us the role and the market, and you will reach the person who runs searches there.
Hiring in the US, the UK or Australia? You will reach the person who runs searches in that market.