About Keri Tietjen Smith

I work at the intersection of hiring systems, applied psychology, and governance, with a focus on how automated and AI-assisted decisions affect accountability at scale.

I’m the founder of Wildfire Group Risk Advisory, where I help organizations audit how hiring systems actually behave, identify where risk is introduced, and design governance so decisions are defensible, compliant, and accountable.

My work centers on a simple but increasingly urgent question:
When decisions about people are automated, who owns the outcome?

How I Came to This Work

My background spans talent systems, applied psychology, and organizational strategy. Over time, I saw the same pattern repeat itself across companies and technologies:

Decisions that were once made by people became embedded in systems.
Responsibility became diffused.
Oversight lagged behind deployment.

I was the Operational Lead for Global Talent Infrastructure at NetSuite during a 1150% headcount expansion over 4 year, and architected scalable hiring systems capable of sustaining enterprise-grade hyper-growth.

I was a Strategic Leader in Public Sector Workforce Deployment, in charge of running a four county Bureau, in rural Upstate NY during the 2010 Census, for the US Department of Commerce.

I’m a Subject Matter Expert in Organizational Psychology, focusing on the mitigation of cognitive and algorithmic bias within human-machine decision-making workflows.

As automation and AI became more deeply integrated into hiring, the gap between decision-making and accountability widened.

That gap is where risk lives.

Wildfire Group was created as a response to this problem. Not to sell tools or optimize for speed, but to provide independent oversight, clarity, and governance where organizations need defensible decision-making. Our team specializes in the identification of legal and operational exposure within automated workforce management systems.

What I Focus On Now

Through Wildfire Group, I work with leadership, legal, compliance, and HR teams to:

• Audit AI-mediated and automated hiring systems

• Trace how decisions are actually made in practice

• Identify legal, regulatory, and reputational risk

• Design governance structures that assign responsibility and oversight

• Help organizations prepare before systems are tested externally

The work is deliberately vendor-agnostic and grounded in real system behavior, not marketing claims.

Advisory, Writing, and Public Engagement

In addition to client work, I serve in advisory and board roles where organizations need independent judgment on AI risk, hiring systems, governance, and institutional accountability.

I also write and speak publicly about AI, work, power, and accountability, with an emphasis on the human consequences of system design and the importance of governance before harm becomes normalized.

My policy and public-facing work focuses on labor, automated decision systems, and democratic accountability, applying the same systems-level thinking beyond individual organizations.

These efforts extend the core of my work rather than replace it.

How to Work With Me

For organizations seeking operational governance and risk advisory, my client work is conducted through Wildfire Group Risk Advisory.

For advisory board roles, speaking, media, or policy-related inquiries, I welcome direct outreach via my -> Media Page

Automation doesn’t remove responsibility.
It redistributes it.

My work is about making that responsibility visible, assignable, and governable before decisions about people are left to systems no one fully owns.

Crunchbase: The Wildfire Group

Crunchbase: Keri Tietjen Smith

Author & Public Work

My writing explores applied psychology, human systems, identity disruption, and the future of work. I publish essays and analysis across multiple platforms, including:

• Medium — essays on systems, identity, grief, AI, and human evolution

• Substack — Human Systems Review

• LinkedIn — commentary on hiring systems, leadership, and workforce transformation, Human Systems Review Newsletter

I also contribute commentary, podcast guesting and analysis to select publications focused on talent strategy, leadership, technology, and organizational change, such as Brainfood Live with Hung Lee. I’ve worked on two Presidential campaigns, and am currently volunteering as a Political Strategy and Community Outreach Consultant, helping to elect Chris Bloomquist for WA State Representative, District 32.