Today’s Live Lounge guest is Karinna Shields, Director and Co-Founder of Concur Recruitment based in Coventry.  Karinna has worked her way through the ranks of recruitment, starting her career age 17 as a receptionist, moving up to resourcer, recruiter, account manager, then managing multiple branches before setting up her own agency - all within 7 years!  She feels that one of her biggest achievements in that time has been winning a million pound account during her role as an account manager, quickly followed by setting up Concur Recruitment with her business partner, completely self-funded at the age of just 21. Karinna is well known by her friends and colleagues for her determination which I think will go a long way to helping her achieve her mission which is for Concur to become a household name and the biggest recruiter in the UK for industrial, engineering and IT recruitment.

Abigail started her 18 year recruitment career in Houston Texas at the age of 22 and when returning to the UK in 2003 she continued in the industry with a brief spell at a national staffing firm, 8 years at an independent boutique agency and also some time working as an Internal Recruiter. It was whilst in this role she that she created what is now Openingz.com with an emphasis on providing a quality service to the video conferencing and visual solutions industry, and in July 2015 Abigail began running Openingz.com independently from her home based in Thatcham, Berkshire. It’s been a strong start and her model is based around a true partnership approach called Focuz which is proving to be very effective and which Abigail is going to tell us more about!

Steven Convery is the Owner and Director at Concur Engineering based in the Midlands.  He started his career off as an old school recruiter – meaning without a “computer” and relying on old school methods, just a phone and the yellow pages. Times have obviously changed since then and Steven has become a highly accomplished man Manager and Owner/Director of his 2nd recruitment business.  Steven has a strong experience in turnarounds and start-ups and currently invests his time in his newest venture ‘Concur Engineering’ with business partner Karinna Shields.  Since moving on from his old school recruitment methods Steven now insists that the 21st century modern technology is at the heart of his business with the latest cloud based products assisting the back office and business functions with a major focus on his brand through all social media platforms.

Tony Chapman started his recruitment career in 2007 as a Trainee Consultant at a boutique agency in London, initially specialising in infrastructure technology before specialising further into the Linux and Open Source space, quickly becoming the company's highest producer. A brief stint setting up a division at one of James Caan's brands then led him to branch out on his own setting up LinuxRecruit. LinuxRecruit are now widely seen as a market leading and pioneering agency within the Open Source and DevOps industries and have successfully built whole engineering teams for the likes of ITV, Net-A-Porter, Ticketmaster and dozens of other companies including many Tech City start-ups. The company were shortlisted for newcomer Agency of the Year in the 2014 Recruiter Awards.

Liz Longman is the Managing Director of TEAM (The Employment Agents Movement) and has been involved in recruitment for over 20 years. Before her current position she worked her way through the ranks to become a Regional Director heading up a region for a generalist agency covering every sector from supplying temporary workers, permanent placements at an Executive level and a Managed Service Contract.  Joining TEAM in 2006 was a natural progression having worked for the founder Member of TEAM and made engagement with other Members to increase the bottom line of the Agency.

Amit Somaiya, CEO at IMS People based in India has over 16 years extensive recruitment experience in Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia and North America, working with both agencies and corporates, and therefore has a unique perspective on recruitment, global migration and outsourcing. He travels extensively in both developed countries and developing countries to understand the trends and influences of the recruitment industry.  Amit’s known within IMS for his hands-on approach in delivering commercial projects and for his vision to achieve global recognition for continuous innovation.

Ben Scobie-Trumper has worked in the recruitment industry for over ten years, a career which started by winning rookie of the year in his first full year for one of the largest IT recruitment agencies in the UK, and then going on to work in multiple sectors including construction, pharma and gaming.  Ben set up Audentia Recruitment two and a half years ago which serves the e-gaming space both on-line and off-line and he's now at the stage where he's ready to put his ambitious growth plans into action.

Kai Murray is the former MD of 'Search Consultancy' who managed their period of massive growth and who now is passing on her 25+ years of expert recruitment and business experience via her own management and leadership consultancy business.  Kai spent 11 years at Search, employed originally in 1996 as Associate Director Edinburgh and within two years became the MD for Scotland.  In 2002 she did a BI MBO growing the business from £40M to £120M on exit and on leaving Search had over 600 employees and offices in 13 cities. Kai raises lots of money for charity and is a Board Member for the Princess Trust for Carers - she has personally raised over £150k for them.

Toby Twaites has 20 years’ experience in the Recruitment Industry and started 'Purple' over 15 years ago. During that time he’s been responsible for Purple becoming one of the most successful brands in the sector winning many accolades and even a personal win for “Recruitment Boss Of The Year” at the Marketing and Advertising Recruitment Awards. Toby has a keen eye for business opportunities and is always open to finding new and innovative ways of working and pushing the boundaries which extends to him being invited to speak at many events within the digital and creative sectors.

James Blackwell is CEO at Ronald James and an ambitious recruiter with a goal to achieve a net worth of £100 million by the age of 40. He started working at age 13 running a newsagents on a weekend. He then bought and sold cars from auction aged 17-19 selling over 40 cars and with that money he started his own coffee shop with a turnover of £250k by just 20 years old. James won Entrepreneur of the year for Durham in 2006 and whist working for BMW for 4 years he was their Top Salesman selling over 500 cars within that period. In 2011 he made move into recruitment where very quickly he found himself managing a team of 8 consultants on track to achieve £1 million revenue and most recently launched his own business - Ronald James. 

Toby is the Managing Director and founder of Harrington Starr, the London based financial services technology recruitment, events and insight company. He is the Chairman of the FinTech Influencers, The FS Technology Breakfast, and the editor of The Trading Technologist and FinTech Capital Magazines. Harrington Starr launched in 2010 and has grown from 4 people to a market leading position in the global FinTech community and is soon to be launching a number of new brands in the group. He started his career in recruitment in 2000 and has held senior positions in two listed brands before launching Harrington Starr.