In today's live episode of The RAG Podcast, I am again joined by my Project 500 partners Tim Roedel and Chris Redmond.

We are now 3 weeks into our February fundraising initiative to get brand new laptops to UK school children in need!

This week we saw lots of laptops reaching schools and letters of thanks for both children and teachers across the country!

Thank you so much to everyone who has helped us so far - but we can’t stop now!

Please help by donating what you can - to do so please visit https://project500.hoxomedia.com/

On this week's show, I was delighted to spend time with Elliot Dell, the CEO of Salt - a well known brand in the Digital Recruitment market, globally. Headquartered in London with 220 staff across offices in Asia, Australia, USA and the Middle East, Elliot joined as a recruiter and worked his way up to CEO after 10 years.

Salt didn’t actually exist when he joined, it was a small, family owned exec search business that soon changed with Elliot’s influence. As Salt gathered momentum, they soon acquired another business named 'Salt’ in New Zealand and that’s where things really took off.

Elliot has an incredible energy and passion for growing a fantastic business that can truly change the Digital Recruitment world. Whilst growing international teams at work, he is also the father of 3 children and has a super active lifestyle - an inspirational guy for sure!

Today I was joined by Doeke, the co-founder of WeAreKeen and agency providing in-house recruitment teams to start-ups, scale-ups and large enterprises across the Netherlands.

In this episode, he talked about how his country has reacted and dealt with lockdown and how his business has had to adapt to the change. Being an in-house agency with a relationship focused approach, he revealed how this has enabled them to stay close and support both clients and suppliers through a time that effects us all!

A refreshing chat from a very innovative recruitment owner, you can connect with Doeke and ask any questions here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/doeke/

Today I was delighted to be joined by Bernie Schiemer, Founder and CEO of Vincere - the worlds number 1 all in one recruitment CRM platform and our wonderful podcast sponsor!

Bernie has spent multiple decades in the recruitment industry and it is clear that what he doesn’t know, probably isn’t worth knowing.

After selling his agency and enjoying his 8 figure payout for a couple of years, Bernie decided to become a tech entrepreneur (with no previous experience)

In today’s episode we discussed

🎙 How in he came to sell his agency

🎙 How he felt with 8 figures in the bank but no job

🎙 Why he wanted to go again as a business owner

🎙 Why he decided to venture into the world of start ups

🎙 His vision for Vincere and where he sees the future of our industry

Genuine and extremely likeable, not only will this give you an insight into selling an agency but also the brains behind the amazing platform we know as Vincere.

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Sponsors:

Odro: https://bit.ly/35UrBKr

Vincere: https://bit.ly/2zOL43W

In today's live episode of The RAG Podcast, I was joined for the final time by Project 500 partners Tim Roedel and Chris Redmond

We are proud to announce that we have reached £40,000 in donations!

Thank you to everyone who donated towards our initiative in February, we set out to raise as much money as possible to get brand new laptops to UK school children in need whilst homeschooling!

We have managed to help over 200 children and united many across the recruitment sector to make it happen!

We will be leaving the initiative open for anyone who wants to donate in March but in light of the announcement of schools re opening, we will no longer be pushing the initiative daily.

To donate please visit - https://gogetfunding.com/project-500/

Today I was re joined by a guest from Ep 19 of Season 1, Clare Cooper! Back in June 2019, Clare was then an executive director at Phaidon International about to celebrate her 10 year anniversary with the business.

Fast forward almost 2 years and she is now the Founder of Storm3 - a specialist Health Tech recruitment agency and one of the newest brands in the Levin Group (the fastest growing recruitment company in the world)

Having recently interviewed James Brown, CEO of the group and Founder of Storm 2, I knew I was in for a great episode!

In today’s episode we discussed:

🎙 Why Clare decided to leave Phaidon and almost left the industry

🎙 What she did with 6 months garden leave in a global pandemic

🎙 Why she decided to join James Brown and the team and start Storm3

🎙 Why and how she is hiring 20 grads at once to give the business a huge start

🎙 Her vision for Storm3 and why she feels their model is more simple than you would expect!

Clare has energy, charisma and huge confidence! I have every faith that Clare and the team will be a huge success and she is certainly one to watch across the globe!

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Sponsors:

Odro: https://bit.ly/35UrBKr

Vincere: https://bit.ly/2zOL43W

Today I was joined live on LinkedIn by Tim Cook - Group CEO nGAGE, a portfolio of 16 specialist recruitment businesses with over 750 staff.

A fascinating chat that felt like an educational lesson for myself throughout, in today’s episode we discussed

🎙 Tims 24 years of working at Hays

🎙 His journey to joining James Caan and subsequent MBO

🎙 How he was ready to sell his business for £200m and then covid hit

🎙 What he looks for when buying and selling recruitment agencies

🎙 His vision for nGAGE post Covid!

Tim is a seasoned professional who’s wisdom and knowledge would benefit any growing agency leader! Contact him directly if you would like to ask any more questions relating to our conversation!

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Sponsors:

Odro: https://bit.ly/35UrBKr

Vincere: https://bit.ly/2zOL43W

Today I was joined by Paul Flynn - an investor in recruitment and mental health businesses and the ex Founder / MD of Staffgroup which he sold in 2015 for over £20m

A warm and open person, I have only ever heard great things about Paul from the market. This was my first ever chat with him in person and he certainly lived up to expectation.

In today’s episode we discussed:

🎙 Paul’s early days at Progressive (S3)

🎙 His journey to launching Staffgroup in 2003 with 2 co-founders

🎙 How he suffered from addiction and by 2006 needed to go to recovery to resolve this

🎙 Running his business as a sober leader, even with the annual trips to Vegas and Ibiza!

🎙 How he eventually sold in 2015

🎙What he did next

🎙His 3 key takeaways from his career for others to learn from

Paul is a recruiter at heart and he clearly loves the industry! One of the success stories of the past 15 years, feel free to contact him directly if you would like to ask any more questions relating to our conversation!

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Sponsors:

District4: https://bit.ly/3rSuE01

Vincere: https://bit.ly/2zOL43W