Holistic was co-founded by Matt Massucci and Tom Alexander in April 2018, following years of discussion about the potential of a people-first people analytics company in the modern and evolving economy.

Matt and Tom first met in 2015 when Tom served as the Chief Operating Officer of 1871, and Matt was the CEO of Hirewell, a successful recruiting firm in Chicago. Their initial encounter happened when Tom reached out to Matt's company inquiring about recruiting services that 1871 could provide to its member companies through Hirewell. This program, launched in 2015, has persisted to this day and has resulted in hundreds of employees being hired.

Over the years, Matt and Tom became friends and began discussing the potential for a business, each from very different perspectives. Tom believed that diversity, equity, and inclusion were the way of the future, with every company needing to focus on creating a diverse, vibrant, and inclusive workforce. Matt’s perspective was that the employee experience would continue to evolve and grow in importance, with businesses of all shapes and sizes increasingly focused on competing for and retaining talent in any way possible.

The more they discussed these ideas, the more they realized they were the same, at least parts of the same challenge. Furthermore, they realized in discussing these matters that leadership would be essential in forming a viable structure to tackle these challenges and opportunities. And so, Holistic was born, with the three pillars of DEI, employee experience, and leadership at its foundation.

On April 10, 2018, Holistic was launched from Hirewell's offices. Initially, the focus was on building systems that would attract clients, allowing Holistic to develop additional tools and systems to be more efficient, effective, customized, and dynamic in serving its clients. And that's exactly what happened. In the five years of its existence, the world has changed dramatically, but the grand experiment that is Holistic – being people-first and client-first simultaneously, with an employee experience that is both compassionate and empowering – has proven true every day.