Teresa Creech, President of MBO Partners by Beeline – Interview Series

Teresa Creech, President of MBO Partners by Beeline, is a seasoned workforce technology and human capital leader with more than 25 years of experience building solutions that connect businesses with independent and contingent talent. A Staffing Industry Analysts’ Staffing 100 Hall of Fame inductee, she has held executive leadership roles across the extended workforce ecosystem — including Chief Corporate Development Officer at Beeline and CEO positions at TalentWave and ICon Professional Services — and now leads MBO Partners with a focus on scalable growth, compliance-driven innovation, and setting new standards for engaging independent professionals.

MBO Partners by Beeline delivers enterprise-grade solutions for engaging, managing, and paying independent professionals, combining deep compliance expertise with modern workforce technology. As part of Beeline’s broader platform, the business enables organizations to confidently leverage independent talent through services such as Agent of Record and Employer of Record, helping companies build flexible, future-ready workforce strategies at scale.

Having spent more than 25 years building and leading companies focused on extended workforce engagement — from TalentWave and Randstad to your current leadership roles at Beeline and MBO Partners — how has your view of AI’s role in workforce strategy evolved, and what feels fundamentally different heading into 2026?

Over the years, technology has steadily moved closer to the core of workforce decision-making, but AI marks a real inflection point. What’s changed is that AI now gives leaders a clearer view of how work actually happens, especially beyond payroll. When you consider that roughly 40 percent of the workforce operates outside traditional employment models, that visibility matters more than ever.

What stands out heading into 2026 is the mix of urgency and hesitation I see across organizations. There’s pressure to cut costs and move quickly, and AI can absolutely help with that. At the same time, governance, security, and internal approval processes are slowing adoption. The companies that navigate that tension well will be the ones that use AI to obviously automate tasks, but more so inform strategy.

With candidate fraud and misclassification risks accelerating alongside AI-driven hiring, what concrete safeguards should HR leaders be putting in place today to protect their organizations?

Speed is the upside of AI, but speed without guardrails creates risk. As hiring accelerates, especially for contingent and independent talent, misclassification and fraud become easier to miss. HR leaders need systems that make worker status, assignments, and compliance visible in real time, not after the fact.

What helps most is consistency. When verification, classification, and oversight live in one place, organizations can move quickly without losing control. That approach protects the business and also builds credibility with independent workers, who expect professionalism and clarity when they engage.

How are high-skill independents using AI in their day-to-day work to increase productivity, and what implications does that have for how HR teams design workflows and engagement models?

A record 5.6 million independent workers reported earning more than $100,000 annually in 2025, and that doesn’t happen by accident. This talent increasingly uses AI as leverage and treats it like a capable assistant or intern. 74 percent of them report using generative AI to research faster, generate ideas, handle complex analysis, and reduce the time spent on lower-value tasks. The people doing this well are pairing deep expertise with tools that help them think, plan, and execute more efficiently.

For HR teams, this shifts how independent work should be structured and measured. Productivity shows up in outcomes, and workflows need to reflect that reality. When organizations design engagements that focus on clarity, results, and access to the right data, independents can plug in quickly and deliver real impact. The more AI becomes part of how top talent works, the more important it is for companies to meet them with flexible, outcome-oriented models rather than rigid processes built for a different era.

What compliance blind spots do you see most often when companies scale independent talent globally, and where do traditional HR processes tend to break down?

Global scale is where cracks tend to appear. Classification standards vary by country, reporting often lives in disconnected systems, and traditional HR processes weren’t built for project-based or independent work. Treating these workers like traditional employees usually creates more confusion, not less.

What helps is having a single view of assignments, spend, and engagement across regions. When companies can see what’s happening in real time, compliance becomes manageable instead of reactive. It also gives leaders confidence that growth isn’t creating hidden risk. Establishing a clear engagement structure ensures compliance, fair market rates, and quality outcomes.

From your perspective at Beeline, what are the biggest gaps you see in how enterprises currently manage contingent and independent talent, and how does Beeline address those gaps differently than legacy approaches?

The most common gap is simple but costly: visibility. Many organizations don’t have a clear picture of who is working, what they’re working on, or how much is being spent outside more traditional employment categories. That makes it hard to plan, forecast, or even ask the right questions.

Beeline was built to close that gap. By bringing extended workforce data into one platform, companies can manage risk, understand demand, and make decisions based on actual work activity. That’s very different from legacy approaches that treat contingent labor as an afterthought.

What signals do top-tier independents earning $100K+ look for when deciding which organizations to work with, and how can HR teams operationalize that insight to become a true “client of choice”?

High-earning independents are intentional about where they work. 64 percent of them say feeling valued for their work matters most to them when selecting clients. So, while being paid well and on time matter, so does predictability. Clear scopes, smooth onboarding, and reliable processes all signal that an organization respects their time and expertise.

HR teams can act on this by removing friction. When engagement feels professional and consistent, independents are more likely to return and recommend the organization to others. Over time, that reputation becomes a real advantage in a competitive talent market.

How can organizations integrate independent workers into total workforce planning in a way that feels seamless for HR, hiring managers, and finance teams rather than adding another layer of complexity?

The companies that do this well stop thinking in categories and start thinking in systems. When traditional employment and independent workers are planned together, workforce strategy becomes more flexible and far more realistic. That requires shared data across HR, finance, and hiring teams.

Visibility into assignments, hours, and spend across worker types makes this possible, even when that information comes from multiple systems. Planning becomes more straightforward when organizations align data and insights across HR, finance, and procurement. Independent talent becomes part of the strategy, rather than an exception to it.

Beeline operates at the intersection of technology, compliance, and workforce strategy — which capabilities or data insights are becoming non-negotiable for HR leaders over the next 12–18 months?

Real-time insight is quickly becoming table stakes. Leaders need to understand where work is happening, how resources are being used, and where risk might be building. That includes visibility beyond the employees, into extended workforce activity.

Equally important is integration. When workforce data connects to HR and finance systems, decisions get easier and faster. Over the next year or so, leaders without that foundation will struggle to keep up with the pace of change.

How should HR leaders rethink governance and oversight when nearly half of the workforce may be external, especially as AI increases the speed and scale of hiring decisions?

When such a large share of the workforce sits outside traditional employment, governance can’t rely on static rules or manual checks. AI increases speed, which means mistakes can scale just as quickly if oversight isn’t built in.

The answer comes via clearer processes, automated approvals, and assignment-level tracking that keeps accountability intact. Organizations can move fast without losing control when governance is embedded into everyday workflows.

Looking forward, what do you see as the biggest missed opportunity for HR teams that treat AI as a point solution rather than embedding it into their extended workforce and compliance strategy?

The biggest mistake is using AI to optimize one corner of the workforce while ignoring the rest. When AI isn’t connected to extended workforce and compliance data, organizations miss how much work is actually happening outside the fixed workforce.

It becomes a lens, not a feature, when embedded across workforce strategy. Leaders gain a clearer understanding of demand, risk, and opportunity. That’s when AI stops being a tool for efficiency and starts shaping better decisions.

Thank you for the great interview, readers who wish to learn more should visit MBO Partners by Beeline.