Pharmaceutical & Life Sciences Sector: Review of 2024 & what’s in store for 2025

As the founder and Chief Executive of Vacancysoft, James is one of the leading figures in the recruitment industry. As an entrepreneurial leader, James especially enjoys new product development, so with that enjoys nothing more than talking to clients about what their priorities and needs are to act as inspiration. Given the data sets at our disposal, James is also periodically invited to speak at events discussing the labour market activity, a topic we are uniquely well placed to comment on. James believes that effective management starts by implementing the mantra of being a positive agent of change, so looks to apply that throughout the business. What can we do better, how can we do it better, and most importantly for people resistant to change, why do we need to do it better? With that, he has grown the business from humble beginnings to now being the leading labour market analytics platform in the UK, working with most of the largest global staffing firms. When not working, James is an active soccer fan, enjoys travelling and is always interested in finding out what people are reading, to act as inspiration for when he has down time.

Frances Haque is the Chief Economist for Santander UK responsible for the economic analysis and macroeconomic forecasts used by the retail bank.  Her team are responsible for developing: the analysis of economic risk scenarios to support the Prudential Regulatory Authority stress test and IFRS 9 processes; analysis for planning and strategic purposes; supporting the external customer work of the bank including speaking at a variety of events; and writing for external publications. 

Prior to joining she worked for a variety of different institutions as a senior economist including, EY, BT, BBC, Ofcom and OFT. 

She also specialises in Competition and Regulatory economics and has appeared on BBC News, Sky News and Radio programmes including the Today and Wake up to Money programmes, providing commentary on published economic data and analysis.