Talentful: What motivated you to take on your current role and lead Microblink’s evolution in the identity space?
Hartley Thompson: First and foremost, I loved the people here. From day one, I wanted to do everything in my power to build a stronger company for them. But I was also inspired by our customers—their needs were evolving quickly, and I knew we couldn’t serve them well long-term unless we evolved just as fast. I saw real excitement in the identity space and recognized how much potential we had to deepen our impact if we focused our efforts more strategically. With the right mindset shifts and a few key moves, I believed we could position ourselves to fill some important gaps in the market, and that’s exactly what we’ve set out to do.
Talentful: Let’s talk about talent. How do you approach hiring, especially in such a competitive space?
Hartley: It’s always a challenge to identify and recruit the best talent. What makes a difference for us is that we’re solving high-impact, real-world problems. People want their work to matter. At Microblink, your work might be used by a bank to stop fraud or by a government to verify someone’s identity. That mission gives us an edge.
We also invest heavily in career development and education. Our team leads major initiatives regardless of where they’re located, and we’re big believers in internal mobility and upskilling.
Talentful: What role does culture play in attracting and retaining talent?
Hartley: It plays a huge role. Culture is what connects a team working across time zones and continents, as ours does. We’ve intentionally built a culture that values outcomes over hours, trust over micromanagement, and curiosity over perfection. When people feel safe to explore and build, they stay, and they thrive.
Talentful: Microblink operates in a space, identity, that’s rapidly evolving. How do you keep your teams agile and aligned?
Hartley: We’ve embraced a product-led operating model. Every team has clear objectives tied to business outcomes—whether that’s increasing onboarding conversion for a client or improving document fraud detection rates. We also maintain tight feedback loops between engineering, product, and go-to-market. That helps us stay responsive to changes in the market and customer needs.
Talentful: Any advice for leaders at other high-growth tech companies when it comes to hiring and scaling product teams?
Hartley: Hire people who are curious, not just qualified. You can teach skills, but curiosity fuels innovation. Also, get really good at storytelling. Whether you’re recruiting or pitching a product, people buy into vision. Lastly, lean into flexibility, but don’t compromise on clarity. Remote or hybrid work models work best when expectations and ownership are clear.
Talentful: Finally, what’s ahead for Microblink?
Hartley: We’re pushing deeper into AI and real-time identity intelligence. As deepfakes and synthetic identities become more sophisticated and hard-to-detect, companies need faster, smarter ways to verify trust. That means continuing to invest in our AI team, growing our partner ecosystem, and building technology that adapts as fast as the threats do. It’s a challenge—but that’s what makes it exciting.
