From the Community: Why this Nominee Stands Out

“Giselle’s impact over the past year is widely recognized as transformational in both the scale of early-career talent engagement and the operational maturity of Yahoo’s Emerging Careers function. Her leadership set a new standard for partnership, data-driven program management, and career development at Yahoo.

As Director and Head of Global Emerging Careers & Learning, Giselle led the strategic vision and execution of Yahoo’s university recruiting, intern programs, and early careers talent initiatives at a global scale. She thoughtfully met with each executive across Yahoo to understand each organization’s hiring needs, bottlenecks, and visions looking ahead at their talent pipelines for 2025 and beyond. In coming back to these key strategic leaders, she tailored different ways Emerging Careers and Gen Z can support those pipelines - which led to an increase in global intern hiring for 2025 by 34%. Her approach ensured alignment with business needs, hiring objectives, and changing talent partnerships. 

She also was a key architect in the expansion of major early-career initiatives, including the early-ID Industry Breakers Program (IBP) and the launch of the Yahoo Intern Alumni Program. These two programs support full emerging career hiring spaces as it allows recruiters to facilitate meaningful connections with university talent as they progress in their collegiate careers - from first years through becoming new college graduates. The Intern Alumni program is the first of its kind at Yahoo, and became another creative solution for company leadership to see additional value in hiring interns - invest in Gen Z talent today, and we can bring back this talent now or in years to come as a full time employee. 

Giselle is also a champion of data-driven decisions. She is a major collaborator on the implementation and ongoing optimization of new tools and workflows for candidate relationship management, including Yahoo Inc’s first CRM for the Emerging Careers team. Her advocacy and participation in the launch for this new system improved reporting and analytics with program scorecards, hiring funnel data, and partnership ROI dashboards, supporting more data and transparency across HR and business units. All of this available data has simplified what was once a manual process, and is readily used in storytelling with business partners and leadership to continue to shape the story of Emerging Careers at Yahoo. 

Beyond her programmatic contributions, Giselle is known for her unwavering commitment to the professional growth of every team member. She intentionally connects with all team members—not just direct reports—offering personalized guidance on certifications, project opportunities, and internal visibility. Her investment in individual development has empowered the team to pursue new, creative approaches to candidate engagement and drive innovation that resonates with Gen Z talent.

Giselle’s leadership continues to inspire, resulting in a highly engaged team, breakthrough early-career initiatives, and a future-focused talent pipeline for Yahoo. In turn, this has led to a sustainable, multi-pronged approach on how Yahoo engages meaningfully with Gen Z talent in a long-term capacity beyond traditional intern hiring scopes.”

“Giselle can be summed up as a visionary and avid champion in emerging career hiring through a long history of success. She has been instrumental in the continued alignment of our leadership around the importance of investing in the next generation of professionals. Her strategic approach and bold advocacy for candidate experience make her a standout leader in this field.

She has guided her team through transformative initiatives, with the creation of a new bi-annual program, Industry Breakers. Giselle's innovative methodologies and forward-thinking strategies have played a crucial role in closing the gap between what current talent is seeking and how our company presents itself, curating custom, memorable experiences.”