Jennifer Erickson

Principal, executive search

Jennifer Erickson brings 15+ years of progressive leadership in human resources and talent acquisition, with deep expertise in complex, mission-driven organizations. Most recently as Senior Manager of Talent Acquisition at the University of Minnesota, she led enterprise-wide recruitment strategy across a large, decentralized, unionized public institution. Throughout her career, Jennifer has built a reputation as a strategic partner who connects the dots between culture, workforce planning, and finding the right people for transformational leadership roles.

Jennifer's expertise spans recruitment in highly regulated environments (including collective bargaining agreements, civil service rules, and governance-dependent hiring), workforce planning, and the development of equitable hiring practices that actually work. Her experience includes recruiting for roles ranging from frontline professional positions to executive and senior leadership, often in contexts where policy, procedure, and people dynamics are equally important. She has led and coached talent acquisition teams, advised executive leaders on complex staffing decisions, and championed process improvements that strengthened both compliance and candidate experience.

Before UMN, Jennifer spent four years in healthcare HR, where she built national and international recruiting pipelines for clinical, technical, and leadership roles, and learned to source talent in specialized markets and manage complex relocation and visa logistics. Her earlier experience in program management at the Carlson School of Management and recruiting partnership at Concordia University rounded out her understanding of how higher education institutions actually operate.

What Jennifer has learned across these roles is this: great hiring isn't just about finding people with the right skills. It's about understanding organizational culture deeply enough to know what kind of leader will thrive there. It's about equity, not as a checkbox but as a real commitment that shows up in how you source, screen, and support candidates. And it's about seeing people, both candidates and clients, as whole humans with real needs and real value.

Jennifer brings that perspective to Ballinger | Leafblad. She believes that mission-driven organizations deserve search partners who understand their worlds, think strategically about fit, and care genuinely about both the quality of the match and the experience of everyone involved. She is excited to leverage her network across higher education, nonprofit, and public-sector leadership to connect changemaking organizations with purpose-driven leaders.