Spotlight Series: M&A - Making your business stand out in a buyer’s market

Jo is a serial entrepreneur and advisor who works with business leaders of all sizes to help them achieve their personal, organisational, and business objectives. 

He founded one of the UK’s best and most profitable independent recruitment businesses, before exiting after selling to an international conglomerate.

He specialises in building high-performing teams who’re equipped and empowered to build deep relationships with clients and candidates, creating loyalty and resilience as well as business growth. 

Throughout his career as a MD and founder Jo stayed hands-on, talking to clients, candidates, partners, as well as employees of all seniorities.

He maintains this approach today and it gives him a very broad and deep understanding of the business landscape – and the challenges - that APSCo members face.

Tara is a highly experienced recruitment professional with over 20 years’ experience in the sector. She has a proven track record in leading and growing successful teams, developing strategy and driving new business lines and markets. Tara is now working as an NED and strategic advisor, mentor and coach to several companies in the UK market.

She was included in the 2015 Global Power 100 Women in Staffing list.

Tara’s specialisms include:

• Growth Management & Business Planning - Developing both strategic and operational plans and roadmaps - to scale businesses, achieve the objective of a capital event and/or international expansion.
• Organisational Design & Development - Extensive experience in the SME sector, both as a recruitment business leader and subsequently as an NED and board advisor.  
• Merger, Acquisition & Exit - Advising on the due diligence required for an exit, what “good” looks like and how to achieve it, strong portfolio of legal and corporate finance experts.
• Executive Coaching - Practitioner diploma via the Academy of Executive Coaching.  Utilising my business experience and coaching academics to support the development of business leaders.

Jamie joined Saffery Champness’ Business Advisory Group in 2014, after spending the majority of his career at a top six accountancy firm. Throughout his career, he has worked with highly skilled entrepreneurs of owner-managed businesses, as well as venture capital and private equity backed companies, international groups and AIM listed companies.

Jamie’s priority is to provide exceptional client service and ensure that he and his team deliver on this all year round. He builds close relationships with his clients and meets with them regularly to discuss commercial and strategic developments, as well as identifying and addressing key issues that will help the companies continue to grow and develop.

He has experience of dealing with a wide range of UK GAAP/US GAAP and IFRS technical issues, as well as assisting on acquisitions and disposals of businesses through transactional support services.

Jamie’s clients have come from a wide range of sectors that include technology, media and telecoms, manufacturing, retail and recruitment. A number of his audit clients have been in the technology sector, where he has helped companies grow from start-ups to strong established businesses.

Through leading the audit of a number of international groups, he has gained experience of dealing with international offices and overseas matters in countries such as USA, Germany and Czech Republic.

John is best known for working as a business sales agent who helps owners sell their recruitment businesses. More recently he has been advising buyers on their buy and build strategies and works as an ongoing board advisor or as a non-executive director. He also takes on ad hoc assignments if a buyer has identified a target and needs help with a valuation and the acquisition process.

Specialisms include:

• Growth management & business planning
• Merger, acquisition & exit
• International expansion
• Financing & funding growth

Matt has over 24 years’ experience in the recruitment industry. He spent 13 years building, scaling, and ultimately selling his own recruitment agency, giving him first-hand insight into the realities of growth, profitability, and exit. Today, Matt works exclusively with recruitment business owners and leaders, supporting them to grow stronger, more valuable businesses by building teams and pulling the right commercial and operational levers at the right time. His work focuses on improving profitability, building scalable leadership teams, and putting robust exit planning in place so that when owners do decide to sell, they are well prepared and in control of the outcome. Matt is known for offering practical, current, real-world advice grounded in recent lived experience rather than outdated theory.

Steven previously worked at Baker McKenzie and Clifford Chance. He specialises in advising on transactions in the Recruitment Sector and has substantial Private Equity and M&A experience, in particular with share sales and purchases and cross border transactions, MBOs, asset sales, joint ventures and group reorganisations. Steven has acted on the sale and purchase of numerous staffing companies and regularly provides such companies with on-going corporate advice.

Steven has been recognised, in the Legal 500, as 'having extensive experience in the recruitment sector' and 'is a name to note for his work advising companies in the recruitment, technology and media sectors'.