Ged Mason is CEO of Morson, a UKbased technical staffing firm. He joined the company in 1986 and took over as managing director in 1999 from his father, Gerry Mason, with backing from Barclays Private Equity. The company was floated on AIM in 2006 and taken private again in 2012. Morson Group added Vital Human Resources to the fold in 2013. In 2016, Mason received the Officer of the Order of the British Empire award for services to engineering and design in the UK.
Matthew Sanders is CEO of Brookfield Rose, a group of 13 companies, including de Poel. Awards for these firms have included the Great British Entrepreneur Award for Social Enterprise (UK), a listing for five consecutive years on The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For, along with The Sunday Times Profit Track 100 and Top Track 250 recognitions. Sanders began his career working for a number of recruitment companies, including Manpower UK and Corporate Services Group plc (now Impellam).
Alistair Cox has led Hays plc as CEO since 2007. With 10,800 staff across four divisions operating from 256 offices in 33 countries, Hays is listed as the sixth-largest staffing firm in the world by SIA. Under Cox’s leadership, the company reached £6.59 billion in revenue in the fiscal year ended June 30, with net fees surging 32% during the period to £1.18 billion.
A chartered engineer who began his career at British Aerospace, Cox entered the staffing industry through his 2002 appointment as chief executive of Xansa plc, an IT outsourcing organisation. He holds a degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Salford and an MBA from Stanford University Graduate School of Business in the US state of California.
As president of Frank Recruitment Group, Zoë Morris oversees the company’s ongoing business and sales operations, employee training and hiring initiatives. Under her leadership, the group swiftly adapted to evolving market conditions by helping more than 6,000 organisations secure new talent in 2021 and placing 12,000 candidates in new roles. Most recently, she oversaw the expansion of the group’s global footprint, with new offices opening in Zurich, Tokyo, Milan, Frankfurt, Montreal and Toronto. Committed to ensuring well-being and equality for her own employees, Morris is also a mentor at Migrant Leaders, a charity that inspires and develops disadvantaged young migrants across the UK.
A partner with international law firm Osborne Clarke LLP, Kevin Barrow has been advising staffing companies on legal matters since 1990. Most recently, Barrow led a team that advised 240 companies on the April 2021 changes to the IR35 off-payroll working rules and helped workforce solutions companies during the Covid-19 pandemic by providing advice on how government funding would be at their disposal. A regular speaker at online industry events, Barrow thrives on moving workforce solution companies toward platform staffing models, consultancy models and train-and-deploy models, along with digitally transforming their processes.
Andrew Preston joined de Poel healthcare in 2013 as managing director and was responsible for a period of significant growth, which led to his appointment in 2015 as group managing director. Following a September 2016 management buyout, which he led, Preston became CEO and is currently delivering record revenue and double-digit EBITDA growth for the UKbased firm. Preston has worked in healthcare and the wider public sector for almost 20 years after starting his career in the National Health Service. An experienced business leader with a global health background — including the sale of his own clinical service business to global service provider Serco Group plc — Preston has experience in growth and development of FTSE 100 companies, PLCs, private equity-backed and private organisations.
As group finance officer of Hays plc since 2006, Paul Venables helped transform the company into the £6.59 billion global specialist recruiter it is today: With four divisions and 253 offices in 32 countries, Hays is the sixth-largest staffing firm in the world, according to SIA. A chartered accountant, Venables started his career at Deloitte & Touche, followed by a 13-year career at Exel plc, where he held several senior finance and operational roles, including deputy group finance director and executive board member. Venables retired from Hays in September and currently is a non-executive director and audit committee chair of Manchester Airports Group.
David Leigh is CEO of AMS, a London-based provider of RPO, MSP and other talent services. Leigh joined the firm in 2019 from Study Group, where he served as CEO and then executive chair. Leigh’s other experience includes serving as CEO of SHL, a provider of talent assessment solutions. He is only the second CEO in the history of AMS, succeeding company founder Rosaleen Blair. In the past year, AMS launched its TalentLabs solution aimed at upskilling clients’ technology capabilities. The company also continued its global expansion, opening new offices in Wuhan, China; Barcelona, Spain; and Budapest, Hungary.
Since joining Rullion as group managing director in 2018, Melanie Forbes has been laying the foundation for growth by developing the people and reviewing Rullion’s products and services to define its market. With more than 25 years of experience in the recruitment industry, Forbes is an expert in managed service, recruitment process outsourcing and staffing. Prior to Rullion, Forbes was managing director, contingent workforce solutions at Alexander Mann Solutions, was CEO of the Guidant Group from 2014 until 2017, and held leadership roles with Advantage Resourcing and Manpower Group. Forbes is a board member of the Recruitment Industry Disability Initiative and is on the leadership team of Ambitious about Autism.
As CEO of PageGroup, Steven Ingham oversees a £1.28 billion global business with a headcount of almost 7,000 employees across 36 countries. Ingham has witnessed PageGroup’s people-first culture being strengthened by successfully adapting to volatile market and cultural changes as well as delivering a threefold increase in turnover and profits. He has continued to reshape what PageGroup is as a business and the opportunities it can create. Since becoming a wheelchair user after a near-fatal skiing accident in March 2019, Ingham increased focus on unlocking hidden talent, enabling employers to nurture diverse workforces built on an inclusive, winning mindset.
