The RAG Podcast - Recruitment Agency Growth Podcast

On this week’s show, I’m excited to be joined for the third time by DSP (David Spencer-Percival!). The founder of Life Science People, a global life science people provider based in the UK with offices in the US and soon to be opening in Europe. They are just under three years old with 100 staff. The first time David was on the show, they were on their way to a hundred people - they were flying. T...

Part 2 with Ben Wallin and Dan Cox on growing their business to 31 recruiters and being no longer reliant on their own billings within 24 months of trading! On this week's episode, I'm excited to be joined for the second time by Ben Wallin and Dan Cox, who was previously on the show 12 months ago in August 2022.  Ben and Dan are the founders of Edison Smart (previously Edison Search). When I...

On this week’s episode, I'm excited to be joined by an old friend, Joe Curtis.  Initially, Joe was the founder of a recruitment company called 3Search, which then led to building a bigger business called 11 Investments.  11 Investments is a series of niche recruitment organisations that work together and share a common goal with a central operational function.  Joe's role as founder...

On this week’s show I’m sharing one of the most powerful episodes I've ever recorded with a lady called Janette Marx.  Jeanette is the global CEO at a company called Airswift, a huge workforce, staffing and solutions organisation headquartered in the US with 62 offices worldwide, 900 employees, and 7500 contractors that they support.  Jeanette's been with the business for nine years and...

I'm super excited to be joined by Alexander Antoniou, the founder of AL Solutions, a Life Sciences specialist recruiter headquartered in London, just over five years old, with 25 staff. Now, the reason I wanted to interview Alexander is because he’s not only grown AL Solutions, but he's also built a portfolio of five other businesses that he does the back office support for. They share infrastruct...

On this week’s show, I am joined by Louise Campbell, Global Head of Learning and Development at Robert Walters. Robert Walters is a global, household name in our sector, with over 4000 employees around the world. Louise is based in Ireland. She was the MD of their Irish business for over 20 years. Recently, she reinvented herself and moved into L&D wth the goal of making a difference across th...

I’m thrilled to have Kevin Frater join me for the first episode of Season 7 of The RAG Podcast!  I usually interview founders and leaders of recruitment firms on the show, but this week we’re interviewing our first unemployed guest.  Kevin is an absolute legend! He was part of the Frank Recruitment Group (FRG)  for over 10 years and left in January of 2023. He started off in a role...

On this week's show, I was joined by Stuart Mitchell, the founder of Hampton North, a specialist cybersecurity search firm, headquartered in the US with 3 staff. He's based in Connecticut, just between Boston and New York. He launched the business in September 2022, so we're only nine months into his journey. I wanted to interview Stuart because he’s built an incredible personal brand. I have neve...

On this week's show, I'm joined by James Emmett, CEO and founder of Hanover Group.  Having recently interviewed Anthony Pitt, President at Hanover USA, I was really excited to welcome James, the original founder, on to the show. James started the business 27 years ago and has now grown to an organisation of over hundred people across multiple international locations including both the UK and...

Roheel Ahmad on growing to 80 staff in 8 years and looking at the next phase of growth - to IPO with a £60 million valuation.  I'm delighted to be joined by Roheel Ahmad. Roheel is the managing partner and co-founder of Forsyth Barnes. I interviewed his partner, Scott, a few years ago during the pandemic and have watched their journey ever since.  These guys are just pushing 80 staff acr...

On this week's show, I'm joined by an old client of mine, Matt Green.  Matt is the founder and CEO of IDEX, a recruitment organisation with an employer branding arm and an advisory arm working with the insurance industry, the financial services sector, and now the legal sector. Matt founded IDEX 17 years ago and they are now fully remote with 60 people in Manchester, Birmingham, London, Edinb...

On this week's show, I'm joined by Adam Richardson.  Adam is the founder of Strive Sales, a dedicated go-to-market recruitment agency headquartered in Manchester with an office in Tampa in the US with over 20 employees. At 33, he has loads of experience in running businesses. He got into recruitment when he was in his early twenties and, within a couple of years, he became an entrepreneur lau...

Recruitment owners and leaders: struggling in today’s tough market?  Well I’m giving you 3 Clever ways to boost your business development using LinkedIn On this week’s episode of The RAG Podcast, I wanted to release a very special episode, which is based on a webinar I recently hosted for the market, all about using LinkedIn to boost your business development. When put into action, this advic...

On this week's show, I am delighted to welcome back a previous guest, David Spencer Percival, known as DSP. His last episode was one of most listened to episodes I ever recorded! David is the founder of Life Science People, a specialist life science people recruitment firm headquartered in London with offices in LA.  They've got over 85 heads and they're only two and a half years old! I inter...

On this week’s show, I am joined by Adrian O'Connor, the founder of Global Accounting Network (GAN)  Founded in 2011, GAN is a business of over 27 people headquartered in the UK with an office in Atlanta.  In this episode, we talked about his journey of growth during the last 12 years, including: How he has built a remote-first culture with UK headquarters and a US based business all whi...

James Leighton on how you can build a business like his, which is eight years old, in two years! On this week's show, I am finally joined by a good friend and client, James Leighton. James is the founder of Anderson James, a specialist construction and property recruitment firm, headquartered in Manchester with over 30 people operating in both contingent,RPO markets, public and private sector in t...

On this week's show, I was joined by Matthew Wragg, the CEO of Gattaca, an organisation with 500 people, headquartered in the UK. Matt has been with the company for over 21 years.  From his first role in recruitment, he's worked his way up. He’s had eight or nine different roles in that time! And then, just over a year ago, in early 2022, he got given the CEO job.  While he never vocalis...

On this week's show, I am joined by James Wardle, who is the founder of Alderson James, a specialist talent acquisition and HR recruitment agency headquartered in the UK with seven staff.  Now, what was so unbelievable about this episode is how honest and vulnerable James was. We spoke about the 10 years of running this business and how he started life with pretty much no plan.  He was a...

This week I  was joined for the third time by Elliot Dell. Elliot is the CEO of Salt, a global leading digital recruitment agency with over 400 staff across 20 offices. Now, Elliot joined the RAG in person in 2019, just before the pandemic. At that point, there were 220 people in the company, spread across nine offices. So in three and a half years, effectively doubling the business while dea...

On this week's show, I don't have a live guest. I have been away, and unfortunately, a few of the guests have not been able to record their own yet. So, instead, I'm bringing back one of the most listened to and interesting episodes I've ever recorded, and that's with James Caan CBE.  Most people know James Caan from his time on Dragons’ Den. What most people don't know is that James made his...

On this week's show, I'm joined by Antony Pitt.  Antony is the president of Hanover USA and has been in the recruitment industry since 1996.  I love this episode because Antony was so candid about his experience.  He's running a business in the US with more than 30 staff. Hanover is a global business specialising in financial services recruitment, with 70 staff headquartered in Lond...

Jonathan Field on building a super profitable recruitment business where everyone has a responsibility to drive business On this week's show, I am joined by Jonathan Field, who is the co-CEO of SSQ.  SSQ is a niche legal search firm headquartered in London with over a hundred staff across 11 offices all over the globe. They've got offices in Europe and Asia, and they've just opened one up in...

For this episode, I’m excited to be joined by Daniel Puttick, the founder of LINKS Recruitment Group. They’re headquartered in Cardiff, with 25 staff in offices in Birmingham and Bristol. Dan started the business in 2017 and reached rather quick success. He saw 7 figures of revenue and record profits inside the first few years.  In Dan’s words, he got to a point where he thought he'd made it....

On this week's show, I was joined by Gary Redman. Gary is the CEO of the Now Business Group, a collection of recruitment organisations in construction, finance, accountancy, services, and most importantly in the education sector. The business is headquartered in the UK with a really strong sales and EBITDA profile. We’re talking between five and a half to six million pounds per year in net profit....

On this week's show, I was joined by Jo Sellick.  In 2022, Jo was the sole founder of Sellick Partnership, a specialist recruitment agency headquartered in Manchester.  Over the last 21 years, Jo has worked tirelessly to drive the business forward and has taken the business to £95m in revenue and 105 staff across multiple offices. In 2019, Sellick Partnership was 70% acquired by a French...