Delfina Franco

Managing Partner, Antal International

Delfina Franco is Managing Partner at Antal International’s Midrand office, where she leads retained executive search and RPO mandates across fintech, financial services, technology, energy, and mining for organisations operating at scale across Africa. With over a decade of experience spanning international payments, key account management, and executive search leadership — including deep expertise across Portuguese-speaking African markets — Delfina brings a rare, people-first lens to the conversation about talent in an AI-first world and as a partner of FactorialHR, she also brings hands-on experience with HR technology and people data — the systems increasingly used to surface (or quietly perpetuate) bias in hiring, promotion, and pay.

Her work sits at the intersection of two pressures every HR leader feels today: the pace of automation and the irreplaceable value of human judgement in hiring, retention, and culture. As an aPHRi™-certified HR professional, Delfina partners daily with HR Directors and hiring leaders to secure the specialists and executives who carry organisations through transformation — proving that even as recruitment becomes more data-driven, the highest-impact hires still come down to trust, fit, and people-first relationships.

At the Future HR Summit, Delfina will draw on this frontline view of Africa’s talent market to explore how organisations can balance automation with human-centred hiring, and what it really takes to retain and grow the people who matter most.