Ash’s Journey
How did you start your career in Recruitment and how did you progress your career to where you are now?
My recruitment journey started 15 years ago after a chance meeting with a Co-Founder who was looking to hire a future leader to help them achieve their lofty growth ambitions. I already had 10 years sales experience including leading successful teams, so on paper it looked like a good match.
After an intensive recruitment process, I joined the business and expected a smooth transition into recruitment. Even joining with lots of valuable experience the first few months were tough… fortunately, everything changed when I adapted my market to become focussed on the growth niche Dynamics CRM market. I quickly identified the key players in the market and set my sights on building relationships with decision-makers and proving myself.
After lots of hard work, I landed my number one target client and delivered well. I gained the trust of their directors and my recruitment career really took off. I spent 3 years concentrating on improving my skills and building my networks before I started to grow my first recruitment team. I loved hiring and mentoring new staff and was laser-focused on outperforming my peers and building a high-performing team. This drive helped me consistently enable my people to become successful and grow their careers, which I loved to see.
From this point, my leadership journey really began and I was promoted numerous times, including relocating to Germany with my family to grow their European business. This peaked when I was promoted to the European MD role leading 8 divisional directors and 140 recruiters.
I will always massively value this journey, the experiences I gained and the people I worked with, but all good things must come to an end. The end of one chapter led to the start of another and my most exciting opportunity to date…
How did you meet/work with Luke?
I hired Luke as part of my first team to focus on the SharePoint and Dynamics CRM markets. After the first interview with Luke I remember speaking to my wife and saying I needed to hire him as he smashed his first interview. When Luke joined he didn’t disappoint, once he found his feet he took off and quickly became one of the company's top performers as he learned quickly, worked very hard and was fearless. I was definitely gutted when he decided to leave, but it was clear he was destined for greater things.
How did you reconnect and decide to launch Cloud2 Consult?
We’ve stayed in touch from time to time over the years and I’ve admired his success with IN2 Consult during testing market times. When I was considering my next career move I suggested we go for a round of golf so I could float my ideas of launching a business.
It was quickly clear that my business idea and his current services aligned really well and each business could assist each other and it would increase the value we could offer to our clients. Plus, we knew how each other operated and worked well together in the past. It felt like a great opportunity to me.
How will you work together on Cloud2 Consult?
It’s a welcomed dynamic shift from last time as we are now eye to eye. We bring different skills to the table and together I know we’ll work tirelessly to create opportunities for our employees to thrive as we want to build both companies with values at the heart of everything we do. Ensuring this is felt by all our Finance and ERP clients and candidates by providing an amazing memorable service.
What are you most excited about in regards to Cloud2 Consult?
On a personal level, the opportunity to create a business and service I am proud of by staying true to our vision and core values and making sure it’s a fun ride for everyone involved.
I also know the potential of the markets we are dedicated to… Vendors are investing vast amounts of money into developing their ERP products, including advancement into AI. This means we will continue to see forward-thinking and innovative clients staying ahead of their competition by optimising their systems and processes to drive performance and profitability.
What is Cloud2 Consult's mission and purpose?
It’s simple, we are dedicated to helping our customers deliver Finance ERP transformation projects with a focus on saving them time and money. We operate with full transparency whilst providing unrivalled access to the best talent in the market. Our mission is to be valued partners to all our customers where trust is mutually built and all parties benefit.