Functions
Finance
The Parkwell search and selection team works alongside a business consultancy staffed with accountants, this experience prompted and supported the early development of our finance recruitment offering. However, the intervening years have witnessed our future growth. We have now served a wide range of challenging situations in the UK and abroad successfully.
We ran a combined search and selection assignment to recruit the Finance Director of Savers, a significant part of the A.S. Watson Group, the world’s largest Health & Beauty Retailer. Around the same time, we also recruited the Finance Director of Dennis Publishing through a targeted search.
Another one of our successes was a major initiative to recruit a 60 strong multi-faceted finance function for one of the UK’s leading distance retailers in Manchester. This involved a detailed assessment of market conditions and a time-sensitive project delivery through advertising in national and regional media.
However, we do not simply work for commercial organisations, we have found the Head of Finance for a number of leading ‘not-for-profit’ ‘names’ such as St. Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and the charity Anthony Nolan Trust, which takes back lives from leukaemia.
Equally notable has been our recruitment of accountants into risk roles, in the UK and abroad, particularly within financial services. We have helped audit teams in the major centres of London, Frankfurt and the Channel Islands in their recruitment activity.
For more information please contact Mark Wheatley on 00 44 ( 0 ) 207 648 4913 or mark.wheatley@parkwell.co.uk
Change Management
We are adept at supporting business change recruitment initiatives, whether post-merger refreshment of a top-team or the raft of requirements that can fall upon a developing business. For example we have recently supported one major Retail client in their development of a new European Strategy team and another with finding a Head of Information Technology for two recently merged retailers. In each instance the client identity must remain confidential.
However, we can boast about the support we have provide a range of firms in similar recruitment and the help we have provided large consultancies in their recruitment of people to help their clients. For example, one of the ‘big four’ engaged us to support the development of their Financial Services consultative offering in London and we drove forward the recruitment of six of their leading consultants within this area.
Moreover, while running what was probably the largest concerted retail change initiative in Europe, the leading firms Littlewoods and Shop Direct engaged us to deliver an advertising-led recruitment of twenty business project managers with experience in disciplines such as logistics supply chain, credit operations, contact centres and marketing. This helped the business reduce dependency on temporary staff, in the wake of a merger, a period when many firms find themselves beset by costs spiralling out of control.
We understand that change takes many forms and we relish supporting our clients through some of the challenges that they face in such situations.
For more information please contact Mark Wheatley on 00 44 ( 0 ) 207 648 4913 or mark.wheatley@parkwell.co.uk
Sales and Marketing
You might have the finest product, or service, in the world but without the key people who bring in your customers everything else would be wasted. However, we understand that good salespeople come in many flavours, sizes and shapes with a range of characteristics and achievements aligned with their customer and client communities.
In this area we have successfully recruited key people to help our clients in the ongoing challenge of winning and building their business-base. Sony Ericsson, a major UK-based consumer electronics company, wanted a bright global brand director to join their operation and engaged us to manage a search exercise. This was challenging and required discrete management of the project within tight timescales. We delivered an outstanding candidate from a high-calibre shortlist within three weeks of being formally retained.
Similarly, IPC Media, one of Britain’s leading media groups asked us to manage a headhunting and selection campaign to find a marketing director. Our success on this project depended upon timely and thorough research of the market and once again delivered a superb candidate within demanding timescales.
The Newspaper Licensing Authority ( NLA ) is an organisation which protects the copyright Newspapers enjoy over their material. It is vital for the NLA to develop commercial relationships through licensing arrangements and for these to be viable. Consequently, we were asked to help developed the activity by leading an advertising-led campaign to find a Sales and Marketing Manager.
In the City we worked on behalf of the Japanese Fund Management Group, Daiwa SBI, to find their Head of Marketing. This was an enjoyable and successful assignment which drew a strong candidate through advertisement.
We also work effectively for Not For Profit clients, such as Asthma UK, for whom we found a Head of Marketing, and Osteopathic Centre for Children for whom we recruited a Head of Fund Raising.
For more information please contact Andrew Fisher on 00 44 ( 0 ) 207 648 4911 or andrew.fisher@parkwell.co.uk
Human Resources
Many organisations declare that ‘people are their greatest asset’ and who is more vital to delivering a positive result in this area than the Human Resources team? The morale, motivation, assessment and support of your workforce is a vital function and it helps to know that you are supported by informed and helpful consultants
This area is one into which we have moved in the last few years. We recognised that our web of HR relationships could be deployed to our clients’ advantage and this is now a significant area of our business.
Thus far, our most notable achievement have been the recruitment of a Head of HR for a major Private Banking operation, driven by a headhunting solution, and the similarly a challenging brief to locate and engage a Head of HR for one of Europe’s most innovative software groups.
These project successes have been built upon with the recent recruitment to our team of Simon Childs, a consultant whose expertise has included finding HR professionals for a range of clients including Capita, Camden Council and Laura Ashley and Chelmsford College, Elateral, CMPI,
For more information please contact Simon Childs on 00 44 ( 0 ) 207 648 4915 or simon.childs@parkwell.co.uk
IT and Operations
Technology is at the very heart of business success. Every company depends upon it to support strategy development, to capture management and business information and to enable the leadership to feel the ‘pulse’ of the firm. Operations staff, in a wider sense, are sometimes neglected by organisations, but at their peril, for efficient management of support business is vital to commercial success in almost any situation or sector.
We have been industry experts in this area of recruitment since our earliest days of operation and have managed an incredibly wide range of assignments.
TW4, part of Time Warner, one of the world’s leading media groups needed to recruit a Customer Services Director to lead their Amsterdam-based operation. This demanding role includes in-bound and out-bound customer contact. We managed a combined search and selection project across Europe and identified the best possible talent, leading to the successful recruitment of a recognised industry expert.
A leading Fund Manager has engaged us over several years to run a range of discrete headhunt initiatives and ‘broadcast’ advertising campaigns. These projects have included work to recruit a Head of Performance Measurement, several assignments to find Project and Programme Managers and advertising-led campaigns to recruit I.T. Business Analysts.
Invesco Perpetual, a London-based retail fund management group asked us to identify and recruit an operational Head of Key Account Management, to work alongside sales and marketing colleagues. This key recruit was hired for her in-depth knowledge of operational processes and management capability.
We have also recruited the Head of IT for Dennis Publishing and worked with Not-For-Profit clients such as the Anthony Nolan Trust on a raft of similar initiatives.
For more information please contact Simon Childs on 00 44 ( 0 ) 207 648 4915 or simon.childs@parkwell.co.uk
Executive
Great success depends upon great leadership. We recognise that no recruitment initiative is more sensitive that that which draws in people to lead an operation. The significant responsibilities the new recruit will assume, coupled with the fact that many of these projects need to be conducted in great secrecy, means that sensitivity, experience, and diligence are essential attributes of a good consultant working on such activity. We have these qualities and have demonstrated them on several projects.
We were engaged by a leading Publishing Group to run a project that required us to identify candidates to become the new Chief Executive based in London. The brief was to identify candidates with proven ability to lead the publication of several titles across diverse markets in the UK and abroad. We examined the market, our key contacts and other industry leaders and embarked upon an effective yet exceptionally discrete search project to draw the most outstanding people forward.
One of the UK’s most exciting and significant retailers engaged us to support the successful initiative to find their IT Director. This position was critical to business as they were integrating several companies and needed candidates capable of working to provide top-level strategic guidance and hands-on management of a department of 600 people. A leading Private Bank retained us in the recruitment which led to their hiring of a superb candidate to lead their IT and Operations, working closely with the Group Chief Executive.
Another notable success in this area was our recruitment of the Managing Director of the Newspaper Licensing Authority following an effective advertising campaign.
Within the Not-For-Profit sector it is worth mentioning that we recruited the dynamic and successful Chief Executive of the Anthony Nolan Trust.
For more information please contact Andrew Fisher on 00 44 ( 0 ) 207 648 4911 or andrew.fisher@parkwell.co.uk