Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top London based CEO’ operating in the Recruiting space. If you think a CEO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Abakar Saidov
Co Founder & CEO of Beamery
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About Beamery: Beamery is a talent acquisition, engagement, and retention platform that manages sourcing, hiring, and retaining of people.
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Theo Pape
Founder, CEO of DRONEWORK
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About DRONEWORK, Flickreel: DRONEWORK is a drone mission matching platform for professional drone operators.
Andrew Bradshaw
Chief Executive Officer of SHL
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About SHL, SHL: SHL, the global leader in talent innovation, helps companies transform productivity through deeper people insight.
Jack Beaman
Co-Founder & CEO of Syft
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About Fuse Universal, Syft: Syft is the UK’s market leading flexible staffing platform.
Michael Ferguson
CEO and Co-founder of Rainmakers
Third time founder with an exit. Michael previously co-founded and lead product development for Geomium, a top-25 social-location app. He has been featured on the BBC and in the Guardian newspapers and regularly gives talks on how the mobile space is impacting business and commerce globally. Michael holds a Bachelors degree in Economics from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and an MBA from the Saïd Business School, Oxford University.
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About Rainmakers: The career marketplace for top salespeople
Melissa Morris
CEO of Lantum
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About Lantum: Lantum is the online platform that enables healthcare providers to manage their clinical workforce.
Patrick Wehrmann
Group Managing Director & CEO, StepStone UK of StepStone
Patrick Wehrmann joined StepStone 2012 as member of the supervisory board. In February 2014 he was appointed to his current role as Group Managing Director with specific responsibilities for the group businesses (Totaljobsgroup, Jobsite, SAON UK) in the UK, Mergers and Acquisitions and international HR. Before joining StepStone as Group Managing Director, Patrick served as Managing Director of Axel Springer Digital Classifieds. In this position he held several supervisory and advisory board positions in the digital classifieds businesses of Axel Springer worldwide. Previously, he was Commercial Publishing Director / CFO of the BILD Group and the Axel Springer Magazine Division as well as COO/CFO of the Axel Springer Magazine and International Division. In the beginning of his career he held several positions in the French, German, US and UK businesses of Axel Springer. Patrick graduated in Business Administration (Diplom-Kaufmann) at European Business School (EBS) in Oestrich-Winkel. He also studied at the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce in Dijon (France) and at the University of Colorado.
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About StepStone: StepStone is a leading international provider of software and services for the human capital management sector.
Mac Dziedziela
CEO/CTO and Co-Founder of Screenable
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About Delta Heed, Screenable: Screenable is a smart video interview platform designed for recruiters to streamline applicant screenings.
Aidan Cramer
Co-founder / CEO of Stride
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About Stride: Deep jobs marketplace connecting sales talent with jobs at tech companies.
James Lloyd-Townshend
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of Tenth Revolution Group
With over two decades of experience leading staffing firms, James Lloyd-Townshend is an experienced CEO with a strong track record of identifying under-served niche markets. He builds and scales highly profitable, market leading international cloud recruitment brands and training academies, all of which outperform their peers by several orders of magnitude. As Chairman and CEO, James has created a business that allows anyone with the ambition to succeed and reach their goals in an environment that is genuinely inclusive. James is an Economics and Accounting graduate from the University of Newcastle and has attended the executive program at Manchester Business School as well as several other business schools in Europe.
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About Tenth Revolution Group: Tenth Revolution Group is the global leader in cloud talent solutions, uniquely equipped to deliver digital transformation through people.
Lilia Stoyanov
CEO of Transformify
Global strategic leader driving operations within finance, treasury, project management, product and business development areas in both Fortune 500 and fast growing fintech companies. Experienced in E commerce, On -line payments, On-line Gambling, Fintech, Business Transformation and Interim Management.
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About Transformify: Transformify Freelancer Management System (FMS) is the seamless way to manage and pay freelancers, consultants and contingent workers.
Chris Abbass
Founder and Co-CEO of Talentful
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About Talentful: Talentful specialises in helping companies to elevate their talent acquisition strategy.
Phil Blaydes
Founder and Co-CEO of Talentful
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About Talentful: Talentful specialises in helping companies to elevate their talent acquisition strategy.
Riham Satti
Co-founder / CEO of MeVitae
Riham Satti, CEO of MeVitae is amongst the top 50 disruptive game changers in Thames Valley, top 100 influential UK tech business leaders and according to Forbes a ‘female founder taking the UK by storm’. As well as her involvement in the tech ecosystem and working with innovative start-up companies, Riham’s main interests lie in leveraging technology to unleash human capital and solve the biggest employment challenges, supported by the likes of Microsoft, European Space Agency and Oxford University – quoted as ‘disruptive recruitment technology innovation’ by Stephen Kelly (CEO of Sage). She is involved in several initiatives in promoting female founders and women in STEM. Riham is a computational neuroscientist from Oxford and Biomedical Engineering from Imperial College London.
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About MeVitae, Tech London Advocates, techUK: Deep tech company helping companies find talent smarter, faster and fairer without unconscious or algorithmic bias.
Robert Walters
CEO and Founder of Robert Walters
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About Robert Walters: Robert Walters is a global, specialist professional recruitment consultancy.
Alex van Klaveren
Founder & CEO of Kandidate
Alex Klaveren is Founder & CEO at Kandidate and previously he was CEO at MedicExchange.
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About Kandidate: We place candidates in their next commercial role and guide them through their startup career at fast-growing, VC-backed companies.
James Uffindell
Founder & CEO of Bright
James Uffindell is Founder & CEO at Bright.
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About Bright: Bright is an online recruitment network that connects graduates, undergraduates and professionals with suitable job opportunities.
Romanie Thomas
Founder & CEO of Juggle Jobs
Romanie Thomas is Founder at Juggle Jobs.
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About Juggle Jobs: Juggle is an information technology company that offers a SaaS platform for the future of work.
Mark Chaffey
Co-founder & CEO of hackajob
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About hackajob: Hackajob is a data-driven and engaging recruitment platform that matches top digital talent with exciting companies.
Mark Kieve
CEO of Zao.com
CEO at Zao.com
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About Pixid, Zao.com: Zao offers social recruiting and employee referral program management software for companies.
Alex Paterson
CEO of WhatJobs
CEO of www.whatjobs.com the global job search engine
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About WhatJobs: WHATJOBS? is a market-leading, independently-run job search engine with offices in London, Dublin and Bangalore.
Amir Qureshi
Chief Executive Officer of Thomas International
With a strong track record of success spanning over twenty years, Amir brings a great combination of operational and commercial acumen to Thomas. As Chief Executive Officer of Thomas International, Amir is passionate about working with business leaders, entrepreneurs and people managers, helping them to make the very best of their talent. Amir is incredibly trusting and encourages honesty, confidence and empowerment in the people he works with; where he will reward those people who deliver with the best opportunities. He is a proactive, results-orientated individual who inspires others into decisions and action. He enjoys a work environment that allows freedom within the role and appreciates those with a strong work ethic. His value to the team comes from his experimentation and in thinking ‘outside the box’, but is demotivated by those who don’t see tasks through to completion or follow up. Amir has a deep knowledge of market drivers to align business models, products, pricing and brands with consumer demand. Prior to joining the team, Amir’s career included progression to senior executive level with FMCG at The Coca-Cola Company. With his wife and three children, Amir lives in Buckinghamshire. His foundations are in his family and he invests as much as time allows to support them in all their hobbies and interests, from professional hockey to ballet.
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About Thomas International: Thomas International is a provider of psychometric assessment solutions with a focus on small to medium-sized businesses.
Mina Gouran
Senior Client Partner- CEO & Board Services of Korn Ferry
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About Korn Ferry: Korn Ferry is a global organizational consulting firm
Khyati Sundaram
Chief Executive Officer of Applied
Prior to joining Applied, I co-founded a B2B AI-based pricing platform. I have over ten years of experience in product, fundraising and finance across both small and large organisations such as JP Morgan and RBS. I hold an MSc in Economics (specializing in game theory) from the London School of Economics and an MBA from London School of Business (with an exchange at the Wharton School).
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About Applied: Applied is the essential platform for debiased hiring. Using predictive, skills-based methods. Hire with purpose, supported by science.
Adrian Ezra
CEO of JamieAi
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About JamieAi: JamieAi connects graduates within Data Science, Technology and Finance to amazing companies across the UK.
Shib Mathew
CEO of YunoJuno
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About YunoJuno: Online platform connecting freelancers and clients in the creative and technology sectors
Mikhil Raja
Co-founder & CEO of SonicJobs
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About SonicJobs: SonicJobs is a job platform revolutionizing the way candidates search and apply for jobs.
Andy Jones
CEO – UK & Europe of TrackerRMS
Experienced Chief Executive Officer with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and services industry. Skilled in Business Process, Requirements Analysis, IT Strategy, Business Transformation, and Management. Strong business development professional graduated from Northwood School.
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About : Tracker RMS helps recruitment firms grow and increase profitability by creating better relationships.
Amanda Cai
CEO and Founder of Icontract Ventures Ltd.
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About Icontract Ventures Ltd.: iContract connects professional contractors with recruiters to match jobs
Miguel Heinonen
Founder & CEO of Heirizon
Miguel is in charge of overall operations and strategy at Heirizon, where he manages the growth as a brand and the expansion of the company. Miguel graduated from Johnson & Wales University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Entrepreneurship, and received his MBA in Global Business Administration.
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About Heirizon: Heirizon is a leading job board that aggregates jobs within 7 miles of your desired location. The platform helps users find jobs in a visual process as well as shows the companies hiring in real-time.
Sandeep Dhillon
CEO of Talmix
Sandeep Dhillon is the CEO at Talmix, having joined the business when it was MBA & Company as Director of Finance and Strategy at MBA & Company. Most recently he has fulfilled the role of Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Financial Officer. Previously he was the Head of the Technology, Media and Telecoms EMEA Practice of GLG, a primary research firm that operates a network of senior industry executives who provide consulting services to venture capital, private equity and hedge fund clients. Prior to this he worked on a number of technology, media and telecoms M&A transactions whilst at Jefferies in the London TMT Investment Banking team and during his time at PwC both in London and San Francisco where he worked closely with Private Equity and Blue Chip Technology clients.
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About Talmix: Talmix has built a Business Talent Marketplace to allow companies to unlock the power of the extended workforce.
Rupert Sellers
CEO & founder of Barometa Talent
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About Barometa Talent: Barometa Talent is a pre-screened talent platform designed for people in hospitality.
Clare Johnston
CEO and Founder of The Up Group
Clare is the Founder and CEO of The Up Group, a leading international executive search and networking firm focused on the digital and technology sectors. She has an extensive global network and hosts regular sector events attracting some of Europe’s most exciting investors, entrepreneurs as well as executives from start-ups through to global corporates. Clare’s earlier career was as a Management Consultant for Detica, an international technology consultancy, as well as being co-Managing Director of an executive search firm. Having self-funded and grown The Up Group from the ground up to a twenty person business shortly opening its Berlin and New York offices, Clare was recognised in Management Today’s influential ‘35 Women under 35’ list, as well as listed on Growing Business Young Guns 2012 awards. Clare graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Management Sciences from The University of Warwick.
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About The Up Group: The Up Group company provides online recruitment, professional placement, and career consulting services.
Matthew de la Hey
CEO & Co-Founder of inploi
Matthew is co-founder & CEO of inploi, a recruitment marketing platform built to connect great employers with the future of the workforce. With employer branding at its heart, inploi empowers companies to speak to candidates as consumers of workplaces, helping them to tell their stories with captivating videos, images, and written content in order to engage active and passive candidates. When actively hiring, inploi’s software is a powerful recruitment tool incorporating job post creation and distribution, applicant tracking, CV-parsing, candidate-job matching, proactive talent search, video profiles, instant messaging, video calling, file sharing, programmatic job advertising and more. For jobseekers, inploi provides a beautiful professional presence making it easy to access career-related information, apply for job opportunities, and connect and communicate with employers, and with each other. Matthew is a Mandela Rhodes Scholar and a two-time Weidenfeld Scholar.
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About inploi: inploi is the future of talent engagement and job discovery.
Laura Degiovanni
CEO and Founder of TiiQu
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About TiiQu: TiiQu is a trust mechanism derived by immutable verifiable sources about one’s ID, Work, Knowledge, Performances
Matt Rantell
CEO & Founder of The Square
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About The Square: The Square is an award winning workforce management platform & hiring marketplace for construction businesses.
Ben Chatfield
CEO & Co-Founder of Tempo
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About Tempo: Tempo is a recruitment platform that connects business support professionals with the best employers.
Aled Morris
CEO of Harris Hill
Aled is the Chief Executive and owner of Harris Hill Limited (including Harris Hill Independent Schools), and the Managing Director of Harris Hill Executive Search. With an extensive and highly successful 19-year track record as a CEO in the recruitment industry, he previously spent a further 10 years as a Chartered Accountant in PricewaterhouseCoopers, and 4 years as a commercial Finance Director. He is a graduate of Oxford University and is a Trustee for the Addiction Support and Care Agency, and the Chair of London Welsh Mini Rugby. His appointments include the Development Director at Queens Gate School, Bursar (also at Queens Gate), CEO with St Michael’s Hospice, CEO with Rotherham Hospice and the Finance Director with Parkinson’s UK.
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About Harris Hill: Harris Hill is a specialist recruiter to the charity and not-for-profit niche markets.
Alice Weightman
Founder & CEO of The Work Crowd
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About The Work Crowd: The Work Crowd is changing the way talented people choose to work and how work finds talented people!
Albert Ellis
Chief Executive Officer of Staffline
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About Staffline: Staffline is a national recruitment organization with more than 350 locations across the UK along with specialist welfare to work division.
Nicholas Barton
Founder & CEO of The Barton Partnership
Nicholas founded The Barton Partnership in late 2007 and has succeeded in building a niche executive recruitment firm with an enviable reputation within the Strategy, Transformation and M&A arena. From a standing start, he has built a team of professionals renowned not only for their talent acquisition skills but also their subject matter expertise with offices in London, Europe, New York and Asia. Throughout his career he has specialised in, and successfully executed, on over 250 senior retained and contingent assignments across Commerce, Financial Services and Professional Services both in the UK and Internationally.
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About The Barton Partnership: The Barton Partnership is a niche Executive Recruitment firm providing permanent and interim solutions in strategy, transformation, and M&A.
Ben Kaminsky
Founder & CEO of EVA.AI
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About EVA.AI: HR Tech Automation Platform
Nikki Cochrane
CO-CEO & Co- Founder of DigitalMums
Nikki set up the business with Kathryn so the weight of our flexible mission falls on her shoulders. She comes out in hives if she has to leave E8 and is the only person under 90 with an addiction to wine gums.
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About DigitalMums: Digital Mums is a social media skills training.
Rick Brownlow
CEO of Geektastic
CEO at Geektastic
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About Geektastic, Geektastic: Profiling and Technical Testing platform for anyone hiring software engineers. Speeding up time to hire, reduce stress on in house devs.
Christopher Platts
Co-Founder & CEO of ThriveMap
Chris Platts is CEO of ThriveMap, a provider of personalised, pre-employment assessment software for volume hiring.
A former recruiter, Chris has experienced the problem of relying on intuition when making hiring decisions. ThriveMap helps companies to redeuce attrition and improve hiring decisions via realistic work simulations that take candidates through a digital “day in the life” experience of a job. Prior to starting ThriveMap, Chris was CEO of TalentRocket a culture-first talent marketplace.
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About ThriveMap: Personalised pre-employment assessments for volume hiring
Olam Sule
CEO of Jetsetter Jobs
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About Jetsetter Jobs: Jetsetter Jobs helps young travellers and professionals find their dream job abroad.
Tom Hunt
CEO/Cofounder of AskTina
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About AskTina, Repairly: AskTina is Monetise your Expertise
Biju Menon
CEO of FairHire
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About FairHire: FairHire is a blind hiring platform for employers to remove prejudice from the recruitment process.
Darren Hill
Founder & CEO of Inzite
Founder & CEO, Inzite (inzite.com)
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About Inzite: Smart discovery tools and streamlined scheduling help your customers hold meetings with the right people, at the right time.
Chris Sahota
CEO and Founder of Ciesco
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About Ciesco: Corporate finance advisors to technology-enabled media and marketing businesses
Magdalena Slowinska Janowitz
Co-Founder/CEO of Includeon
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About Includeon: An accessible platform matching remote jobs with disabled e-workers, creating a happy online workplace and a more inclusive society.
Simon La Fosse
CEO, Founder & Co-Chairman of La Fosse Associates
Simon has worked in technology executive search for the last 20 years. Up until the end of 2006 he worked for a leading executive search firm and helped to grow the business from an embryonic team to an international organisation of over 500 people. Simon was part of the executive team that took the organisation public in 1997 and left to start La Fosse Associates at the beginning of 2007. La Fosse Associates has since grown to a position of prominence as one of the most respected technology search firms in the UK, and is poised for further significant growth.
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About La Fosse Associates: La Fosse Associates focus all our efforts on providing an outstanding service to our clients and candidates
Thiago Azevedo
CEO & Founder of ZOA Robotics
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About ZOA Robotics: A Startup developing affordable robots inspired by nature.
Juliet Eccleston
CEO and Co-Founder of AnyGood?
Juliet is CEO and co-founder of the crowdsourced talent platform AnyGood?, an open network where professionals recommend other professionals for roles. AnyGood? launched in 2017 after Juliet’s frustration with the recruitment industry collided with her interest in the sharing economy. Since then AnyGood? has attracted interest from national and industry press, as well as large corporates and small to medium sized businesses who are looking for new ways to find great people. AnyGood? successfully crowdfunded their initial seed round and are set for significant growth in 2019. The team’s commitment to good design principles has enabled them to develop a solution which helps to level playing field for candidates. This includes a proactively curated network, to ensure a good representation of society and as a result greater diversity of recommended candidates. Prior to AnyGood?, Juliet delivered large scale change programmes for over 20 years within Financial Services, Retail and Government. Juliet has held senior Programme roles at Egg, BBC, Sainsbury’s, Legal & General, Fidelity Investments & Britannia Building Society amongst others.
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About AnyGood?: AnyGood? is making a bold stand in this new economy.
Logan Naidu
CEO and Founder of Dartmouth Partners
Logan is the founder and CEO of Dartmouth Partners. He has a notable track record in recruiting across financial services but with a particular focus on M&A and Private Equity. While running the firm from a strategic perspective, Logan uses his recruitment expertise to guide consultants in the execution of roles. He continues to work on the delivery of more senior advisory and investment mandates. Logan studied to Masters level at the University of Birmingham before entering the City in 2000. He began his career at JPMorgan and PriceWaterhouseCoopers in Corporate Finance. Logan co-founded the Cornell Partnership in 2005 before leading a successful exit of the financial services and graduate business to form what is now Dartmouth. Logan has a desire for individuals and businesses to work together to mutually flourish and to enjoy shared success and this is reflected internally at Dartmouth. Dartmouth’s success is partly due to Logan’s drive to succeed.
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About Dartmouth Partners: Dartmouth Partners is provides recruitment consultancy.
Justyna Nowicka
CEO of ASPIRE
Straight forward, direct, committed, hard working and inspirational entrepreneur.
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About ASPIRE: Inventing non-bias recruitment via #blockchain, globally. Changing the world of recruitment forever.
Lionel Hackett
CEO of WiseCrowd
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About WiseCrowd: WiseCrowd is the trusted online platform connecting businesses with freelance consultants in Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC)
Robert Bye
CEO & Co-founder of Availo
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About Availo: Meet then hire local freelancers
Robert Fanshawe
CEO & Founder of PeerBrief Pty Ltd
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About PeerBrief Pty Ltd: PeerBrief is a peer-to-peer recruitment referral platform that makes sourcing and managing referrals easy.
