HB20: Zack Hernandez, AEP Hawai‘i

After recruiting on Wall Street and in Seattle, Zack Hernandez came home to build the tech talent pipeline Hawai‘i has always needed.

When Zack Hernandez talks about Hawaiʻi, he does not frame it as a place people leave. He talks about it as a place people are trying to get back to.

“People know Hawaiʻi for sports and tourism,” says Hernandez, founder & CEO of AEP Hawaiʻi. “But what they don’t always see is how much talent comes from here—and how many people are just waiting for the right opportunity to return home.”

Hernandez learned how talent markets really work far from the Islands. He began his career in New York City as a recruiter on Wall Street, placing candidates into investment banks and hedge funds where competition was relentless and compensation was unapologetically tied to performance.

Later, in Seattle, he led recruiting teams supporting fast-growing technology companies. The experience was formative — but incomplete. “If I just stayed on the mainland,” he says, “I wouldn’t be able to help Hawaiʻi. And coming back would only get harder.”

So, he came home and built what didn’t exist. AEP Hawaiʻi was founded to create a real, repeatable pathway for Hawaiʻi-based and Hawaiʻi-rooted professionals to access high-growth technology careers — often remotely, often with mainland or global companies. Hernandez focused on roles that could change lives not just resumes. “We can’t live here on sub-$100,000 salaries anymore,” he says. “If we want people to stay—or come back—we have to give them the opportunity to thrive here long term.”

The results are starting to show. AEP Hawaiʻi has helped place engineers, product leaders and operators into roles earning well into six figures, including positions with venture-backed startups and emerging Hawaiʻi-based unicorns. One of Hernandez’s proudest moments came when he helped place a longtime friend—born and raised in Hawaiʻi—into a senior role at a fast-growing local tech company. “That’s when you really feel the impact,” he says. “When it’s someone coming home.”

But Hernandez is thinking beyond individual placements. “We’re such a strong community here,” he says. “What’s been missing is the infrastructure to connect people meaningfully between the moments—between the events, the meetups, the introductions.”

That gap led to Talent Hui, a new platform spun out of AEP Hawaiʻi designed to digitize Hawaiʻi’s “coconut wireless.” “The next generation needs something tangible,” Hernandez explains. “Something you can see, interact with and build on.”

His long-term vision is bold: positioning Hawaiʻi as a global connector between the U.S. mainland and Asia. “Hawaiʻi is the most isolated land mass in the world,” he says. “But that’s actually our advantage. We want Hawaiʻi to be the Singapore of the U.S.”

A former Division I wrestler and team captain at Columbia University and Punahou, Hernandez approaches the challenge with discipline and resolve. “This is my new fight,” he says. “And it’s one worth showing up for every day.”