Today’s Live Lounge guest is Karinna Shields, Director and Co-Founder of Concur Recruitment based in Coventry.  Karinna has worked her way through the ranks of recruitment, starting her career age 17 as a receptionist, moving up to resourcer, recruiter, account manager, then managing multiple branches before setting up her own agency - all within 7 years!  She feels that one of her biggest achievements in that time has been winning a million pound account during her role as an account manager, quickly followed by setting up Concur Recruitment with her business partner, completely sel ..read more

Abigail started her 18 year recruitment career in Houston Texas at the age of 22 and when returning to the UK in 2003 she continued in the industry with a brief spell at a national staffing firm, 8 years at an independent boutique agency and also some time working as an Internal Recruiter. It was whilst in this role she that she created what is now Openingz.com with an emphasis on providing a quality service to the video conferencing and visual solutions industry, and in July 2015 Abigail began running Openingz.com independently from her home based in Thatcham, Berkshire. It’s been a strong st ..read more

Liz Longman is the Managing Director of TEAM (The Employment Agents Movement) and has been involved in recruitment for over 20 years. Before her current position she worked her way through the ranks to become a Regional Director heading up a region for a generalist agency covering every sector from supplying temporary workers, permanent placements at an Executive level and a Managed Service Contract.  Joining TEAM in 2006 was a natural progression having worked for the founder Member of TEAM and made engagement with other Members to increase the bot ..read more

Amit Somaiya, CEO at IMS People based in India has over 16 years extensive recruitment experience in Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia and North America, working with both agencies and corporates, and therefore has a unique perspective on recruitment, global migration and outsourcing. He travels extensively in both developed countries and developing countries to understand the trends and influences of the recruitment industry.  Amit’s known within IMS for his hands-on approach in delivering commercial projects and for his vision to achieve glob ..read more

Ben Scobie-Trumper has worked in the recruitment industry for over ten years, a career which started by winning rookie of the year in his first full year for one of the largest IT recruitment agencies in the UK, and then going on to work in multiple sectors including construction, pharma and gaming.  Ben set up Audentia Recruitment two and a half years ago which serves the e-gaming space both on-line and off-line and he's now at the stage where he's ready to put his ambitious growth plans into action ..read more

Kai Murray is the former MD of 'Search Consultancy' who managed their period of massive growth and who now is passing on her 25+ years of expert recruitment and business experience via her own management and leadership consultancy business.  Kai spent 11 years at Search, employed originally in 1996 as Associate Director Edinburgh and within two years became the MD for Scotland.  In 2002 she did a BI MBO growing the business from £40M to £120M on exit and on leaving Search had over 600 employees and offices in 13 cities. Kai raises lots of money for charity and is a Board Member for t ..read more

Toby Twaites has 20 years’ experience in the Recruitment Industry and started 'Purple' over 15 years ago. During that time he’s been responsible for Purple becoming one of the most successful brands in the sector winning many accolades and even a personal win for “Recruitment Boss Of The Year” at the Marketing and Advertising Recruitment Awards. Toby has a keen eye for business opportunities and is always open to finding new and innovative ways of working and pushing the boundaries which extends to him being invited to speak at many events within the digital and creative sectors ..read more

James Blackwell is CEO at Ronald James and an ambitious recruiter with a goal to achieve a net worth of £100 million by the age of 40. He started working at age 13 running a newsagents on a weekend. He then bought and sold cars from auction aged 17-19 selling over 40 cars and with that money he started his own coffee shop with a turnover of £250k by just 20 years old. James won Entrepreneur of the year for Durham in 2006 and whist working for BMW for 4 years he was their Top Salesman selling over 500 cars within that period. In 2011 he mad ..read more

Toby is the Managing Director and founder of Harrington Starr, the London based financial services technology recruitment, events and insight company. He is the Chairman of the FinTech Influencers, The FS Technology Breakfast, and the editor of The Trading Technologist and FinTech Capital Magazines. Harrington Starr launched in 2010 and has grown from 4 people to a market leading position in the global FinTech community and is soon to be launching a number of new brands in the group. He started his career in recruitment in 2000 and has held senior positions in two listed brands before lau ..read more

Daniel Mundy is the CEO of anzuk* Teachers a recruitment agency focusing on teaching and childcare placements across Australia, the UK and Asia. At university in Ballarat, Australia,  Daniel completed studies as a Physical Education Teacher and then moved to the UK for three and a half years to teach PE to Health and Special Educational Needs students. Upon making the decision to head home to start a new life Daniel says he was lucky enough to fall into Education Recruitment and when spotting a gap in the market for sourcing and placing teachers between the UK and Australia ..read more