Dan Meyers, CHRO at Acronis

Show Notes

Balancing AI and Humanity: Acronis’ CHRO on Governance, Alumni Hiring, and Global HR at Scale

Summary

How do you scale HR across 63 countries while adopting AI without losing the human touch?

Dan Meyers, Chief Human Resources Officer at Acronis, pulls back the curtain on leading a 2,000-person, truly global organization that serves the managed service provider (MSP) market.

Dan shares how his team built a follow-the-sun HR model, why recruiting alumni is a strategic advantage, and what it really takes to roll out AI responsibly in HR—especially under stringent data privacy rules.

He details Acronis’ alumni strategy using Boomerang, integrated with Workday, which generated 400 outreach messages in its first month, a 50% click-through, and 10 candidates in process. Dan also breaks down AI governance for people leaders: what to ask vendors, how to balance automation with compassion, and why AI should be seen as an efficiency multiplier—not a headcount reducer.

Expect pragmatic guidance on standardizing approved AI tools, synthesizing employee survey data with AI, and change-managing teams through platform choices. He closes with a simple mantra for HR: start small, build trust, and scale what works.

Timestamps

[00:45] – Acronis overview: MSP-focused model, cyber protection, and global growth

[02:40] – Building a global HR team: follow-the-sun support across 63 countries

[04:31] – 2026 challenge: integrating AI in HR while preserving humanity and privacy

[05:35] – Alumni hiring at scale: Boomerang + Workday, early results and why it works

[09:34] – AI governance realities: privacy, automation use cases, and efficiency vs. headcount

[13:31] – What to ask AI vendors: data location, model “under the hood,” access, and security

[15:03] – Employee adoption: personal LLMs vs. approved tools, policy, and trust

[18:58] – Change management: standardizing platforms and helping people adapt

[20:32] – Parting advice: don’t boil the ocean—pilot, prove, and scale

Takeaways

- Operationalize an alumni strategy—integrate an AI-enabled platform with your HRIS to re-engage “good leavers” and shorten ramp time.

- Build AI governance with Legal and Security from day one; vet where data lives, what model powers the tool, and who can access what.

- Use AI to automate insights, not empathy—start with reporting and engagement survey synthesis to speed analysis without losing the human touch.

- Treat AI as an efficiency multiplier, not a headcount reduction lever; redeploy time to higher-value work.

- Standardize on approved AI tools, publish clear usage guidelines, and close risky gaps (e.g., personal LLM usage).

- Start small: pick one high-impact use case, measure outcomes, and scale what works.
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What is HR Voices?

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Each episode brings experienced HR and People leaders into realistic, anonymized workplace scenarios—the kind you recognize immediately. Performance issues. Messy conflicts. Investigations that don’t fit neatly into a policy box. Instead of talking about their own companies, guests react to outside cases and walk through how they’d think it through in real time.

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Emily Fenech (00:00)
Welcome to HR Voices, I'm Emily Fenech and today I get to hang out with Dan Meyers who's the CHRO at Acronis. Welcome Dan.

Dan Meyers (00:09)
Well, thank you, Emily. I appreciate it. Excited to be here with you today.

Emily Fenech (00:13)
I'm so glad you're here. So Dan, I was watching some of your company culture videos, learned so much about Acronis. It seems like a truly global company. You offer cyber protection to a number of different client types and it seems like you're growing really quickly from outside looking in. So was hoping we could start by you telling me a little bit about Acronis and about the people there and your role as CHRO.

Dan Meyers (00:23)
Mm-hmm.

Great,

so Acronis is, as you said, we are a truly global organization and we actually focus on a couple of different areas, right? So we do data backup, we do disaster recovery, and then we obviously secure all the data that we back up for our customers, okay? Acronis is not, we're not a traditional enterprise company, so we don't tell to, you know,

Nestle or we don't sell to Volvo or you know pick any price company GTV Bank, whoever it is. We actually sell to what is called the MSP market. Okay, and these are ISPs for local businesses, whether it's a florist in Bucharest or a county firm in Des Moines, Iowa. They get their IT services through a local provider and a Kronos is actually one of the companies that provides a lot of the backbone of that data for what they use. So

Additionally, they have like M365 licenses, a kernel back of all that data for them. We protect it. They don't even know it's a kernel is doing it. They just see it as their end, you know, their Internet service provider. So great, great business model. And yes, we have been growing. So we are today about 2000 employees globally. When I came here five years ago, we just over 1100. And I can't just

We talked about earlier, I can't disclose our revenue because we're privately held, we're actually majority owned by one of the largest private equity firms in the world, EQT. We have had exponential growth year over year. Hopefully that will continue in 2026. And we'll get to get maybe that billion dollar mark at some point in our future. So that's the goal anyways.

Emily Fenech (02:18)
Yeah, that's great. Yeah. You told me the numbers and we're not going to disclose them, but I'll just say it's impressive. ⁓ how, is it? What's it been like over the last five years? you know, leading the people function in a global context, in a rapid growth context. What's that been like?

Dan Meyers (02:24)
Thank you.

Yeah. You know, just think of probably the best ride possible at Universal Studios, and it's 10 times better. You know, as I said, when I came here, it was about 1,100 employees. But remember, I actually had to build a global HR team. There were people here. There were functions here. But it wasn't a team. So we had to build the infrastructure to help support the growth, which is what we've done to enable the organization to move forward.

You know, I would say that by and large, we are an integral part of the entire business because we're not just HR people or business people as well. So everything that we do is focused on how do we help the business move forward? How do we help the business grow? And when you think about our breakout of employees, I mentioned 63 countries around the world, the majority of our employees reside somewhere in Europe, Middle East and Africa. You've got about 400 in the Americas, you've got about 350-ish in the Asia Pacific.

including India. And then you have that core of Europe, Middle East and Africa. So, you know, we've got about 1200 plus people that reside in that geography. So when I say we're global, we really are 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And my HR team reflects that because we are a follow the sun model. So it works out well. I think our people are happy for the most part. So we're doing something's good, that's for sure.

Emily Fenech (03:54)
Yeah. Well, let me stick with your ride analogy, right? Any good ride has its ups. We've talked about the ups, but they also have downs. Any good ride has, you you got to keep it dynamic. So I'd love to ask you, as the business has grown and as the world around us shifts, what would you say is the biggest challenge that you, your HR team, your people are facing as we roll into 2026?

Dan Meyers (03:57)
Mm.

Yeah?

Yep.

Well, you know, I don't think it's a down, but it's definitely a challenge is how do we integrate more AI tools into the HR function? Yet maintain the humanity of what the function is supposed to be right at the end of the day. You know whether you're someone who's having a child or you have an ill parent or you have a family member who's dealing with a mental health issue. And you want support or services or someone to talk to. AI is great. They're not going to solve that problem.

People want real compassion. So how do we balance that? know, we so we recently something very exciting we we launched before I even get into it. know, AI and HR space is very challenging, especially again, where the majority of our employees are because of privacy rules. OK, and how data is used. So we have to be very, very careful. We get to use a recruitment side a lot more easily than we can in core HR. But, you know, we just launched not too long ago a product called Boomerang.

uh, founder led company out in New York city, Jeff Walt, it allows us to actually connect with our alumni. So it's integrated into work day and we track our alumni, those that were good leavers, if you will, people that we were sad to see go over the years that we might want to come back in the AI to actually tracks with a Ben, the types of roles they've had. says, Hey, you know, Emily, who was here as a marketing person has been at this company for three years as a director of field marketing. We're like, Oh, wait a Emily's growing a career.

So how do we reach out to those alumni to say, hey, we have an opening, we'd love to have you come back. Because understanding a ChronoSchool, we operate the business market that we're in, the challenges we face, it takes so long for people to fully understand that, that being able to grab somebody who was here, went off for another opportunity to grow their career, now they come back and they continue to grow their career with us. In the first month of operation, we had over 400 reach outs to alumni over the years, we had a 50 %...

click through, we actually have about 10 people in process for different roles right now. And that is just an enormous, if you will, boost for us, right? In a tool that originally I was a little skeptical about, but we put it in and Jeff and his team have done a great job. It's like, this actually works. But integrating AI is probably one of the biggest challenges we face because we have the right amount. How much is too much?

Because you don't want to over rotate, you know, a lot of companies they'll over rotate they go from nothing to everything and again, you lose the humanity and at the end of the day, this is a company of cronies that is That is hard running as we are We genuinely care about people when one of our people are in trouble. It is a rallying cry. It started with our found a surge Bell He left us some years ago. He sold an investor in the company

But know, Serge's thing, was a hard driver as a CEO. But when somebody was in trouble, boy, the entire company rallied around him. And we still do that to this day. So there's a lot there, but give you a little bit better picture.

Emily Fenech (07:20)
Yeah.

Yeah. Let's unpack a couple of things. First of all, the whole boomerang employee concept. I love that you're embracing that. see, I mean, like you said, there's so much value in it. They already know your business. It's like the devil you know versus the devil you don't, you know, for both parties. ⁓ And, you know, you've seen some of the old school thinking on that as, know, loyalty and they left us and closing the door. just such a, it's just such a

Dan Meyers (07:26)
Mm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep.

You know what? Yeah.

Emily Fenech (07:47)
odd way to think about someone's career. It's embracing the fact that careers don't look like what they used to. They just don't.

Dan Meyers (07:54)
Nobody nobody goes and say someplace for 25 years anymore. You know it's like everyone my dad sent me work for kingdom Chronos. was like, you're gonna change jobs again and what yeah why you was like well. And it's only been there for like three years or something and I had to explain on he who worked for the same organization for 30 years. You know life isn't like that anymore. The average life expectancy for somebody at a company. It's like 2.8 years. And people change.

And you have to be open to it and understand that there are so many dynamics that can win away, you know, and just because somebody left didn't mean they didn't love you. It didn't mean they didn't care about the company, but it's just the way that we live today. That's kind of how technology is driving the changes, right? You got to balance it.

Emily Fenech (08:40)
Yeah. I also like that sort of AI driven use case of not just identifying, but staying engaged with an alumni. mean, this revenue teams have been doing that for quite some time. And I love to hear a similar scenario from a people function, which, know, your best clients, people change jobs, make sure you're tracking where all of these, where yet where that network is extending into and use it to open doors. Right. So, ⁓ really smart. like that. And then you also started to bring up.

Dan Meyers (08:47)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely.

Emily Fenech (09:09)
the, the sort of challenge of AI adoption, HR teams leading it, privacy data started to go there. And maybe we could keep going down that path for a second of what do you see as, I'll just, I'll just preface it by saying, speak to a lot of HR leaders and something that seems to trip people up right now is the governance conversation, right? Wanting to move fast pressure to move fast, then this sort of like,

Dan Meyers (09:13)
Mm-hmm.

Bye!

Emily Fenech (09:32)
Wise responsibility to say, on a second, before we bring all these tools in, do we have our house in order? How's this data being leveraged and are we doing it sort of safely, equitably?

Dan Meyers (09:43)
It is by far, think, the biggest, you know, listen, unlike an R &D organization or some data organizations that can take AI tools and easily implement them. And there is not in most cases a great degree of concern, right? Now you're always concerned about intellectual property and how does that, does it fall back in as an open system, as a closed system? What does that really mean? But when it comes to people and data privacy,

It's a completely different realm and set of items that we have to look at. And not only data privacy, but I go back to what I mentioned earlier. It's that humanity piece of it. You know, like I see use cases galore where I would love to say, Hey, I want to automate all of these workday reports. And you know what? We're going to do that. If that's something that we are, we're in the process of doing, my team is working on it right now because it's only the automation, but the analysis.

You know, and we'll do the same thing with our employee survey this year when the survey is done. We're actually going to feed it into the AI tool and say, OK, I'll synthesize this data for us. What are you saying? Because that would normally take us two to three weeks if people read through the verbatims and now they're trying to match it up to the questions. Whereas the AI tool can do it in a nanosecond or two. Depend upon your internet connection.

So there's that balance there. And then I think the other balance that a lot of companies are facing is if one thinks it's a, well, if I use AI, can minimize costs on people and infrastructure costs. And that's not necessarily true. You're automating tasks, but you're freeing up time for them to do all the other things that you haven't been doing. Right? It's not a one for one implement this tool, save a head count. It's implement this tool, gain efficiency and be able to do three other things that you haven't So.

Those are some of the balances that we face. then really, what is the right moment to use it? At what point do you go, we're all turning into computers, and that's not what we want either. So like I said, think the biggest opportunity in the HR space, it is around recruitment and all the data tools that are out there to find higher screen through.

On the actual back end office side of it, I think there's still some work to be done on what can and can't be done because a lot of these AI tools is interesting thing. When you start digging under the hood, you find out that they're using like chat GPT on the back end and they're just putting pretty lipstick on it and calling it their tool. Wait a minute, I can't be on an open platform where all of my data is now funneling out into. Because when people do their little query now all of a sudden.

Emily Fenech (12:25)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Meyers (12:30)
taught the model. Here's Dan Meyers who works at Acronis. So it's delicate balance that we have to watch as we go through it.

Emily Fenech (12:41)
Absolutely. As HR teams are evaluating AI tools, as someone who's operating in the data and security space, what do you think are some of the best questions that the HR team should be really mindful of as they evaluate?

Dan Meyers (12:46)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Security, security, security, and what access is actually required to this pool like they do today, right? You know, when we purchase equipment or software, for example, you know, it goes to our security team because they're looking for the vulnerabilities that it could potentially create to our network. And that is called cloud applications, right? I mean, you're going on a public cloud or private cloud? Well, where is this data held?

You know, that is you want to understand. I think the analogy I used earlier, what's really under the hood that's powering these tools and who owns that? Where's the responsibility for it? And you know, I think organizations of size like ours, know, you get into the. We'll call it anything above 500, you know, employees really going to have a really good legal team and a really good see so.

Who's looking at this and can be your partner and you know, very fortunate, great CISO partner here who's, you know, he's like, Dan, I'm not so sure about this. And now we stop pushing back and we question. And it's amazing the data that you find out and the things that you find out about these tools when you evaluate them. So I would say, you know, with all, listen, it looks great. It can really be a fantastic tool, but proceed with caution. And don't fall in love on the first date.

There are other dates out there that you need to go on first before you select the tool that you're going to use.

Emily Fenech (14:25)
Yes, absolutely. Tools is one piece of it, but I also think just understanding your employee sentiment and behavior around AI usage is another big chunk that a lot of people ignore. They get kind of hung up on the tools component. I was speaking with Kyle Forrest of Deloitte. He's the future of work expert at Deloitte. He's a good speaker and we were lucky enough to have him come over to All Voices and talk to us about trends. And one of the ones that really surprised me was that even at

Dan Meyers (14:34)
And.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Emily Fenech (14:52)
organizations, enterprise organizations, where they're giving them like safe, secure tools to do very specific use cases. Half the time when they interview employees, they're still using their own personal LLMs. They don't trust the employee, you know, sanctioned ones for lack of a better word. They want to keep using their own prompts. They don't want their employers to know how they're using it. They don't want them getting access to their best prompts. It's a trust issue. So I don't know if you've...

Dan Meyers (15:10)
Yep.

Yeah.

Emily Fenech (15:19)
observed that or have any thoughts on that, but I found that to be really fascinating.

Dan Meyers (15:24)
You know, I think it's it's more. It it's so new. I mean, you think about it. AI is we know it today did not exist three years ago. Right, so it is so new and it's like a lot of new technology. Once somebody jumps into something, this is what I know. I I don't want to use copilot. I want to use chat GPT because if I use this prompt, I know I'm going to get whatever.

or vice versa, whatever it may be, whatever one they're using. For us, we actually have some very clear guidelines for AI usage of work. And in fact, know our ESO is going to be blocking some sites soon so that we get a consistency and people use an approved systems. And to go back to your point though, it's excitement and trepidation all in one.

Emily Fenech (16:12)
Yes.

Dan Meyers (16:12)
And how do you balance that? Right. And you go back to what's going to help us be better. What's going to help us learn more, be more, do more. Right. But also it's going to allow the employee experience to be enriched too, because it's not just one replaces the other. It's a compliment is what it is. And you have to find those compliments that are going to help you grow. ⁓ and I think it's a, it's untrotted waters really for most organizations.

Emily Fenech (16:36)
Thank

Dan Meyers (16:42)
Um, you know, I was talking to a friend of mine, the CHR, another company like, Oh, we're doing this, this and this. And as I started to ask questions, I realized that they're really not doing it. They're slow rolling as best they can. Um, because people at the end of the day, you know, they do want that human connection, right? And you're still going to have people, um, and so you have to do it in a manner that it does not discount or diminish through teamwork.

Right? True thinking together, working together through problems. You use it as a tool to complement it. ⁓ and so it, I think the next two years will be the most defining. I think it'll be a lot like what we saw. You probably don't remember this, but you know, if you think about the cell phone industry, okay, back in the mid nineties, there were a million providers in the U S alone, right?

Emily Fenech (17:13)
Mm-hmm.

check.

Dan Meyers (17:43)
That's it. The consolidation will occur as this piece of our technology economy matures. it's hopefully, you pick the right one at the right time, know, the consolidation of something else and relearn. But it will be, this will be a fun ride for sure.

Emily Fenech (17:44)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yep. I think about the change management too. You're talking about people don't want to, hopefully you picked the right one. think about even when we all started at my organization to align around, this is the tool we're going to use, the enterprise version. Everyone's like, ooh, but I kind of had everything set up just like I wanted and now I got to, it's like moving, you know? Like,

Dan Meyers (18:16)
Hahaha

Oh

yeah, we went through the same thing here. It just three and a half years ago now. Yeah, three and a half years ago. I think it was where we we had to decide we were going to be a Microsoft shop or Google shop. You know, and we decided we're going to go Microsoft and we personally love Microsoft. Great company. But I was an Android user. It was a Google guy and like this just works and that's Microsoft stuff and but you know what?

Emily Fenech (18:29)
Great.

Yeah.

Dan Meyers (18:47)
People adapt to the technology. come around. They will use it either through restrictions or through just, everybody else uses it, and I kind of have to use it. It's one of the reasons why I went back to iPhone and gave up my Android device, because everybody in my family is an iPhone user. So I couldn't join the FaceTime parties.

Emily Fenech (18:49)
There you

Yeah. You

were messing up all the group chats because no one can send pictures. Yeah. Yeah.

Dan Meyers (19:09)
Listen, I was green. You know, I was green. They were all blue. I tell them I was

happy and excited. They were just blue and sad. But didn't work.

Emily Fenech (19:19)
Didn't work.

Well, this has been a great conversation. Lots to think about, Dan. I always ask people if they have any sort of parting words of advice or encouragement for other HR folks who might be listening.

Dan Meyers (19:32)
You know what? I think the advice I would give is kind of the same advice I'm reminding myself every day. It's okay to be excited. Don't be blinded or fooled. As it relates to AI, I think that the upside is incredible and the things that we can do. mean, the ease in which it is to create trainings for employees now using AI. It's super great. It is. There's so much goodness to be had.

But at the same time, it is a perceived precaution in the use cases and how you're doing it. You know, I think it's as my dad once gave me advice when I was starting out in the real world, as they say, don't boil the ocean. It never works. You know, one small lake at a time, in fact, that was a pond. And then you can move to a lake. ⁓ And I think that's what, you know, HR folks need to do.

Emily Fenech (20:23)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Meyers (20:27)
How are you really gonna best make an impact without saying, my God, we can do everything and it'll be perfect because it won't. And I think if people take that approach, would say it, hopefully they'll have great success.

Emily Fenech (20:41)
Mm-hmm. Baby steps. Like, what about Bob?

Dan Meyers (20:44)
Exactly,

you know, put one foot in front of that actually to use the Christmas time one foot one foot in front of the other and soon you'll be walking across the floor, right? One step at a time.

Emily Fenech (20:52)
That's right.

Once up at a time. Well, thanks again, Dan. I really enjoyed this conversation and hope you and all of our listeners enjoy the holidays. I this might be our last one for the year.

Dan Meyers (21:02)
Well, I

hope you have a great holiday season, a safe one, and a happy new year to Emily. All right, take care.

Emily Fenech (21:07)
Take care.