2014 Game Changer: Max Simkoff

Max Simkoff believes big data applied to the workforce has the potential to do enormous good, so he has dedicated his career to it.

Simkoff, 32, left as director of corporate development for a hospital payment technology company in 2007 and co-founded Evolv Inc., a human resources software company that helps employers better understand employees and job candidates by comparing their skills, work experience and personalities. Simkoff’s vision for the company came from his belief that there’s a gap in aligning employer needs with employee talents.

Under his leadership, Evolv is now crunching more than 500 million data points on gas prices, unemployment rates and social media usage, often in partnership with institutions such as Northwestern University, the University of Pennsylvania and the Yale School of Management.

The company has published data to help disprove that long-term unemployed and job hoppers are potentially bad hires. For the 3.7 million Americans unemployed for longer than six months, such insight could help change that perception.