Viktor Calabrò is founder and executive chairman of Coople, an on-demand platform for flexible work. Calabrò actively mentors startups in Switzerland on a variety of topics as board member, advisor, coach or investor. An advocate for the Swiss startup ecosystem, his stated goal is to make flexible work a rewarding experience for workers as well as companies optimizing their flexible workforce management.
Bettina Schaller heads the group public affairs activities of The Adecco Group. She is also president of the World Employment Confederation as well as WEC-Europe and has been involved in the governance of the WEC for 10 years. In addition, she is a member of the B20 Employment and Education Task Force; cochair of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Business and Industry Advisory Committee Employment Labour and Social Affairs committee; steering group member on the World Economic Forum Center for New Economy and Society; steering group member of the Global Apprenticeship Network and president of the American Swiss Young Leaders Alumni Foundation.
Executive chairman of Norman Broadbent Group since June 2021, Peter Searle has more than 30 years’ experience in the recruitment sector. Norman Broadbent Group provides board and executive search, senior executive interim management, solutions, research and insight, consulting and recruitment services. Most recently, Searle was executive chairman of Airswift. He has also held leadership roles at Adecco, including chief executive of Adecco UK and Ireland, and Spring Group. Searle has a strong track record within the staffing industry and has enjoyed success within both the private and public markets.
As managing director EMEA and ANZ for Hays, the sixth-largest staffing firm in the world with global revenue of €6.5 billion, Nigel Heap is responsible for 14 of the 33 countries in the organisation. In 2012, Heap was appointed UK & Ireland managing director, and in 2017 he was appointed managing director of a further 12 countries in the EMEA region. Over the following 15 years, as managing director of Hays in Australia, he oversaw a tenfold increase in revenue and expanded into New Zealand. He was further appointed managing director of APAC in 2005, leading Hays’ expansion into Asia.
As CEO of Phaidon International, Harry Youtan oversees the strategic direction of its business and brands. Founded in London in 2004, the company has 12 offices across the UK, United States and Asia. Youtan leads 900 employees globally and was responsible for Phaidon’s partnership with Quilvest Private Equity in 2018. He led the business through the pandemic, navigating significant operational changes, the success of which resulted in the company’s dividend recapitalisation. Youtan has also been featured on SIA’s Staffing 100 North America and 40 Under 40 lists.
NHS Professionals CEO Nicola McQueen has spent the past 20 years creating effective staffing strategies across the private and public sectors. Last year, she led NHS Professionals’ pandemic resourcing response. The organisation built three national recruitment programmes to support the NHS while also launching a Rapid Response campaign, all of which delivered 20,000 workers to the frontline, supplied 10,000 Clinical Contact Caseworkers for the NHS Test and Trace programme and most recently provided over 17,000 vaccinators to NHS Trusts in England.
In 2020, National Recruitment Federation CEO Geraldine King successfully launched the world’s first undergraduate three-year degree apprenticeship program for recruiters in partnership with the National College of Ireland and a campaign to “Keep Ireland Working,” connecting agencies to candidates who lost jobs during the pandemic. As the head of an organisation that establishes and maintains standards and codes of practice for the recruitment industry in Ireland, King has focused on expanding its services and has introduced the accredited Certificate in Recruitment Practice — the only certificate for recruiters in Ireland. She joined the federation in 2009.
Matthew Rodger, Alexander Mann Solutions’ chief growth and commercial officer since 2017, has been with the London-based RPO and MSP provider for nearly 20 years. Rodger wears many hats, including overseeing the commercialisation of AMS’ products and services, new logo development and significant business development of existing customers, as well as managing all corporate mergers and acquisitions. In 2019, he led AMS to the successful acquisition of Karen AI, its first foray into proprietary direct-to-market technology now called Hourly. Known as a creative solution provider, Rodger has been recognized by august organisations for his contributions to the industry.
In December 2020, Sean Zimdahl became the executive chairman of Digital Futures, a London-based technology services company designed to address the need for diversity in the technology sector and increase the digital skills within the wider UK economy. A longtime veteran of the staffing industry, Zimdahl is responsible for Digital Futures’ strategy, finance, legal and governance. Before moving to Digital Futures, he served 10 years at Allegis Group EMEA, first as COO for EMEA in 2011 and then as president in 2013. He joined Allegis with its acquisition of Aston Carter, where he had been CEO since 2007.
Passionate about connecting people to work, Sam Smith is the VP and managing director of KellyOCG EMEA. Last year amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Smith and her team successfully brought to the European market OCG GO MSP — a simple, powerful and quick-to-implement platform with robust data and insights for a single country or lower-spend MSPs. The solution successfully launched with a diverse pipeline of approximately $100 million spend under management. A familiar face at industry events, Smith is a board member for Enactus UK and the newly-elected chair of Apsco Outsource.
