Sherrington has recently completed two senior-level hires for outsourced HR and legal advisory specialist Ellis Whittam.
1. Chief Sales Officer - April 2021
2. Head of Commercial - September 2021
Providing outsourced regulatory advice for over 35,000 UK employers, Ellis Whittam were gearing up for sale when they commissioned Sherrington to recruit a Chief Sales Officer in mid 2020. The pandemic had created opportune conditions for growth for outsourced advisory businesses like Ellis Whittam, but to capitalise on market opportunities and deliver organisational growth ambitions post-sale, they required a highly experienced Chief Sales Officer.
Recruiting in a highly risk-adverse candidate market due to the impacts of the Covid pandemic, it was essential to develop a compelling offer to take to passive candidates. Given the specificity of the brief and the need to recruit a strategic sales leader with a background in the BPO / outsourcing sectors and with the requisite understanding of cutting edge B2B technology, it was believed the strongest chance of recruiting the best candidate available would be to deliver a targeted headhunting campaign.
Sherrington worked with Ellis Whittam's CEO to develop a clear and compelling brief to position to high-performing passive candidates. Researching both the competitor market as well as relevant adjacent sectors, Sherrington engaged a a broad cross-section of candidates and provided market intelligence to Ellis Whittam as the search gathered pace.
After an extensive search, Patrick Hulbert was appointed to the board in the role as Chief Sales Officer and joined Ellis Whittam in May 2021 after serving his contractual six month notice period. Patrick was previously working as Sales Director for global accountancy outsourcing business Wolters Kluwer when Sherrington identified him, where he had worked for nearly 20 years.
In December 2020, Ellis Whittam was purchased by Marlowe Group Plc. The acquisition gave Ellis Whittam the strategic buying power to acquire a number of other businesses with a complimentary service portfolio to their core business. On joining in May, Patrick immediately began working with the board on a large scale integration programme as well as the recruitment of a Head of Commercial to join Patrick's senior team and to develop a strategy for commercial growth of Ellis Whittam's existing customer base and integration of account management functions across the rapidly evolving group.
Sherrington were retained to recruit this key position for Patrick in early 2021 and carried out a challenging search to find a candidate with a senior commercial background and the ability to enhance Ellis Whittam's account development activities through an established team of account managers. Tapping into an existing network of senior candidates, as well as carrying out desk research to identify new potential candidates, Sherrington executed a thorough search process spanning several B2B and B2C market sectors.
After an exhaustive search exercise, Deepa Patel was appointed as Head of Commercial and joined Ellis Whittam in September 2021, having served her notice period with Moneysupermarket where she worked as Head of Partnerships.
Commenting on the experience of being recruited through Sherrington and of retaining Sherrington to recruit the Head of Commercial, Patrick said...
When approaching me about my current role, Sherrington did a great job of engaging me in a professional and friendly way and brought alive the opportunity that they were working on. Throughout, they were supportive and pragmatic and ensured that any concerns were well fielded. Since beginning in role, I have chosen to use Sherrington's services to fill an important and senior position in my new team. This allowed me to work with Sherrington from the other side and I can say that the experience was equally excellent. They were able to effectively source a number of strong candidates and support us in bringing the right person into the role.
Patrick Hulbert - Chief Sales Officer, Ellis Whittam
