As the recruitment investment business celebrates a hugely successful five years, CEO Abid Hamid reflects on the business’s top five accomplishments – and how they achieved them.
Established in 2013, Recruitment Entrepreneur has become Europe’s fastest growing recruitment investment specialist. Based in their South Kensington hub, they’ve made a global impact in just five years, with offices in London, Dublin, Edinburgh, Sydney and beyond. The company’s status as a key player in the global recruitment start-up industry is only set to strengthen with their exciting growth plans for 2019.
Celebrating the five-year milestone, Chairman James Caan CBE commented, “This has been a transformational year for us. We’ve launched new businesses and scaled existing operations by opening new offices, with even more to come. Our high-growth rate and sustained profitability is testament to the success of our unique model”.
Recruitment Entrepreneur’s CEO, Abid Hamid, said ‘This milestone provides a great opportunity to reflect on the past five years, what we’ve done well and what we’ve learnt that will keep us on track for further expansion and profitability for the future. We’re incredibly grateful to our joint venture partners for their continued hard work and commitment, and the growing support of our wider network of followers.’
Looking back over the past five years, Abid outlined the top five achievements he’s most proud of:
1. Accelerated growth
The rate of our global growth has been phenomenal. Having developed a strong presence in the UK market; with offices in London, Manchester, Newcastle, Belfast, Glasgow and Edinburgh, we understand what it takes to expand into new markets. This has allowed us to secure new offices in both Dublin and Sydney this year, on schedule and within budget. Going into 2019 we are well placed to deliver on our strategy of launching in Hong Kong and Singapore.
2. Supporting 17 joint ventures
Since 2013, Recruitment Entrepreneur has facilitated the launch and growth of 17 recruitment brands. We have partnered with and launched Bow Resources, 360 Search, Darwin Hawkins, Stanford Search and Urban Connect this year alone. Our shared equity approach provides financial backing, tailored growth strategies and expertise from prominent industry leaders, including James Caan, to help each of our partners scale. Being part of such a diverse portfolio gives us a broader perspective and allows for more collaboration. We all benefit from each other’s success and come up with solutions to help each other overcome specific challenges.
3. 40% of the portfolio’s placements are international
Although the portfolio businesses are predominantly UK based, 40% of their placements and clients are international, which has been advantageous in enhancing our global profile. Due to these existing relationships we have been able to set up new hub offices in different country locations, which supports other portfolio partner businesses. Beeken Reeves recently launched their architecture recruitment capability following Recruitment Entrepreneur establishing a new Sydney office.
4. Rising headcount
The accelerated growth of the company is supported by our rapidly increasing headcount. From 2013 to today, we’ve gone from only 11 people to more than 180 of the best and brightest. The combined influence of Recruitment Entrepreneur’s network, alongside the connections of 17 joint venture partners, gives the group strength in numbers. The whole portfolio benefits from increased brand awareness across multiple market sectors and geographies.
5. Learning and development
In addition to regular CEO forums and portfolio-wide team building events, Recruitment Entrepreneur has partnered with globally-renowned CASS Business School to create a bespoke training programme for leaders in entrepreneurship. With access to industry-leading recruitment training, our joint ventures are taught best practice from day one. I’m proud that a key business focus is around the development and progression of people within the business to become market experts.
In advance of the five-year milestone, Abid shared his top five tips for business leaders – read it here.
