OUR EXPERTS BECOME YOURS
Meet Your Growth Partner
When you work with Forge, you get a partner who understands that hiring impacts everything, your culture, your leadership, and your ability to scale.
We don’t separate HR from recruitment. We connect it, so every hire fits where your business is going, not just where it is today.
Amber Johnson
CEO & Owner
Amber brings over 10 years of experience helping companies hire, build, and retain high-performing teams. But what sets her apart isn’t experience, it’s perspective. She understands that hiring is not a transaction. It’s a long-term decision that affects culture, performance, and growth.
Having worked across industries like energy, construction, oil & gas, and healthcare, Amber brings a practical, real-world approach to HR, helping companies avoid costly hiring mistakes and build teams that last.
Her focus is simple: Help leaders make better people decisions so their businesses can grow without friction.
Debbie Manovich
HR Specialist
Debbie helps turn HR from a reactive function into a strategic advantage. With experience across engineering, construction, and agriculture, she brings structure and clarity to growing organizations that need better systems, not more complexity.
She’s known for identifying inefficiencies, improving processes, and helping teams operate at a higher level without adding unnecessary overhead.
Her approach is practical: Streamline what’s broken, strengthen what works, and support the people behind it.
Kim Hickson
Senior Talent Specialist
Kim specializes in finding the people most companies can’t. With deep experience in recruitment, workforce planning, and leadership development across North America, she helps companies secure talent that aligns with both role requirements and long-term vision.
From individual contributors to executive leaders, Kim focuses on one thing: Finding the right fit, not the fastest fill.
Her work ensures companies hire people who stay, grow, and lead.
Nicole Johnson
Senior Talent Specialist
Nicole brings over 20 years of experience in sourcing and recruiting top-tier talent across multiple industries.
But her real strength is understanding people, what drives them, what fits them, and where they succeed long-term.
She focuses on attracting candidates who align with company values, not just job descriptions.
Her process helps companies avoid costly mis-hires and build teams that actually work together.
Laura McBride
Human Resources Generalist
Laura bridges the gap between hiring and day-to-day HR execution.
She helps companies not only bring in the right people, but support them with the systems, structure, and processes needed to succeed.
From HR analytics to system implementation, she uses data to improve decision-making and create more efficient, scalable operations.
Her role is simple: Make sure your people strategy actually works in practice.
Testimonials
Trusted By Growth-Focused Companies
“Amber and her team have been amazing to work with. Forge has been able to scale services to meet our need and all the recruiters have been professional and provide high quality candidates for roles.”
“Amber & Team have always gone above and beyond to help me find the correct people for my team. They worked with me to define the culture and skillset that I’m looking for, and supported me to grow the team from nothing to +15 people.”
“Amber Johnson and her team of professionals at Forge Performance have developed a great partnership with Blackline Safety over the past 3 years. They have transformed our approach towards employee placement, and took the time to understand our company culture, which enabled them to find people that not only had the best skillset for the job but also embodied Blackline’s core values. Forge Performance’s dedication to building strong relationships with the hiring managers to understand the team strengths and dynamics makes this process unique, along with their consistent level of service in a professional manner saves time for the hiring manager. Blackline Safety has undergone extensive growth since our initial partnership with Forge Performance, and this growth would not have been as successful without the Forge Team.”
“Forge’s HR Services and recruitment support have been invaluable to our nonprofit organization. They understand our unique needs and constraints, and their dedication to helping us find the right talent to further our mission is evident in every interaction. We’re grateful for their partnership and the positive impact they’ve had on our team.”
“What a fantastic group of individuals lead by Amber! They worked with us day, night and weekends to support our recruitment needs. We did not give them an easy task for number people we needed in a short amount of time but they pulled through. The Forge team worked well with integrating where they needed to into the existing Front end of our office (being payroll, safety etc) as we were onboarding people. It was a wild ride! Wish nothing but the best to the Forge team and we will be back!!”
