Jai Shekhawat is founder and CEO of vendor management system provider Fieldglass. Under his leadership, the Fieldglass platform grew to be used in 100 countries, available in multiple languages and currencies and has a spend management of more than $25 billion annually. The company was acquired by SAP in 2014 for a reported sum of nearly $1 billion. He was Ernst & Young’s 2012 Midwest “Entrepreneur of the Year” as well as the 2012 recipient of Staffing Industry Analysts’ Peter Yessne Staffing Leadership Award (formerly called the Peter Yessne Innovator Award) for his work in pioneering the VMS space.
2014
Alistair Cox is chief executive of Hays, which had revenue of £3,697 million in its last financial year. He has been CEO since 2007. Prior to Hays, he was chief executive at Xansa plc from 2002. Cox is also a non-executive director of 3i Group plc. He is a chartered engineer and has an MBA from the Stanford Business School in California.
Daniel Augereau is the chairman and CEO of Synergie, the fifth-largest staffing firm in France. He trained as a technical blue-collar worker in the aeronautic industry and soon founded his first staffing firm, Europe Technique Assistance, in 1969. Ten years later, the company merged with another staffing firm, Sydergie, resulting in the launch of the Synergie brand.
Robert Walters is chief executive of the firm bearing his name. After three years at Touche Ross & Co., Walters joined the recruitment firm Michael Page as one of its first employees. After an eight-year period, which included setting up the firm’s New York office, he returnedto London and established Robert Walters in 1985, specialising in junior to middle management professional positions. Robert Walters plc now has 53 offices in 24 countries.
Philip Gracco is the co-founder and CEO of Accent Jobs, a Belgian staffing group. He negotiated the entry of the private equity firm Gimv into the group’s capital in 2006 (which exited in 2012), an investment that boosted Accent’s growth and profitability.
Johnathan Johnson is the chief executive officer of Fircroft. Johnson joined Fircroft in 1997 as a consultant and was promoted to operations director for the IT, commercial and rail sectors in 2001. Since taking the helm in 2005 from his father and company founder John Johnson, he has overseen the global expansion of the company. Fircroft now operates in more than 60 countries and reported an annual turnover of £898 million in 2013. Johnson was awarded the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2011 in the globalisation category.
Alain Roumilhac is ManpowerGroup’s president of Southern Europe, the largest region for the business in terms of revenue. Previously, he served as president of Experis and ManpowerGroup Solutions in France as well as segment leader for Experis Southern Europe. Before he joined ManpowerGroup, Roumilhac was CEO of the French IT Management services firm Osiatis, and previously spent 20 years in various positions in IBM, the latest being vice president of business lines, IBM Global Services West Region.
Lord Michael Ashcroft, KCMG PC, is a successful businessman, philanthropist and former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party between 2005 and 2010. His many business interests include U.K. staffing firm Impellam, which had revenue of £1.2 billion in its last financial year. In 2010 his 57 percent holding, via the Lombard Trust, was transferred to his children and “remoter issue.” According to The Sunday Times, his personal fortune is estimated to be more than €1 billion, half of which he has pledged to donate to charity.
Ingrid Hofmann is CEO and founder of I.K. Hofmann (also known as Hofmann Personal). Hofmann is a member of the board of BAP, the German national staffing association, and also belongs to the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations (BDA). I.K. Hofmann was awarded the Ludwig Erhard Prize for business excellence in 2010 and holds the Great Place to Work Gold Trust Champion Award for being named a Great Place to Work seven times in a row. Founded in 1985, I.K. Hofmann is one of the largest staffing agencies in Europe and Germany.
Nathalie Jaoui became deputy CEO and head of temporary employment and recruitment at GroupeCrit in 2002. Jaoui oversees the ongoing series of acquisitions that is driving GroupeCrit’s growthin the U.S. market. She joined in 1989, served as a director of the company since 1992 and later served as the CFO. Jaoui has also been a director of the French staffing association Prism’emploi since 2003.