Headhunting firm Red Diamond Executive is on track to reach £1.2m in turnover by the end of 2022 – a 112% increase on last year.
Revenue is expected to grow again by 50% in 2023 to £1.8m – making it one of the region’s fastest expanding executive search firms.
Turnover in 2021 was £564k and this year’s impressive growth has been achieved with just four fee-earners.
Founder Emma Robinson is one of the UK’s leading headhunters, supporting clients with some of the most challenging issues facing businesses and its people, including the global relocation of personnel, replacing legacy staff and succession planning.
Red Diamond specialises in the financial services, construction, pharmaceuticals and aerospace sectors – working with some of the world’s largest organisations in those industries – but also supports some of the Yorkshire region’s leading family-led and PE-backed firms.
These include manufacturers and retailers; specialising in helping firms grow from £20m turnover to £100m+. The firm often places CEOs and financial directors on salaries of hundreds of thousands per year.
Emma said: “The last two years have been incredibly testing for many people in the C-suite, who have been faced with both opportunities and challenges – many of which have been people-related, with remote working, The Great Resignation and the four-day week coming to the fore.
“What a lot of people might not realise, is that a head-hunter’s job goes far beyond ‘just’ finding people. At Red Diamond, we’re involved at a strategic level, and we have strong business acumen, meaning that we use niche techniques which help our clients to see gaps in their skill sets and develop new market opportunities.”
This strategic stance has helped the business to grow organically year-on-year, and it now has plans to open locations in London and APAC and grow its Middle Eastern operation by 2023 – the very place the business was founded by Emma and her husband, Simon in 2008.
Last year, they launched Red Diamond Recruitment to support businesses with middle-management recruitment, after CEOs who they’d placed in positions were increasingly asking for help recruiting people at different levels of their organisations.
With plans to hire three additional recruiters/headhunters by Q4 of this year, Red Diamond will also launch its London office in the immediate future, enabling it to take advantage of the capital’s strong financial sector – recognised by the business as a growth market. Tech, engineering and aviation are other key sectors for Red Diamond over the next five years.
But when recruiting in-house, Red Diamond will not go down the traditional route. Emma added: “We always tell clients that the right person for the job isn’t necessarily someone who has years of sector experience, and so we follow our own advice.
“Our next headhunters will already be industry experts in the fields we are looking to grow in – and we’ll train them in headhunting. We’re reverse engineering the process.”
Red Diamond is also set to launch a graduate training programme, with close links to the University of Huddersfield.
Most of Red Diamond’s largest clients cannot be disclosed, but others include Gardner Aerospace, a 1,500 employee and £170m turnover business; Dye and Durham, a 1,500-employee/£600m-turnover software company; Bomag, a construction machinery company with 2000+ employees and a £700m turnover; and OE Electrics, a £25m turnover Yorkshire-based electrical business.
