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Managing Director – Specialist Recruitment
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Overview
A specialist recruitment business in the North West of England is looking for a Managing Director to take commercial ownership of the business and lead its continued growth. This is a permanent, full-time role, office-based a minimum of four days per week with one day of flexibility. The package comprises a competitive base salary plus meaningful performance-related pay tied to personal billing and overall business performance.
This is a genuine player-manager role, not a corporate or purely strategic MD position. The person coming in will carry their own desk, win and develop clients, and make placements, while simultaneously leading a small team and owning the P&L. The business operates across professional and technical recruitment markets, placing permanent and contract specialists. The opportunity here is real: the right person will have the autonomy to shape the commercial direction of the business, build a stronger and more diversified client base, and develop a team that performs consistently, not just in peaks. For someone who still loves the commercial side of recruitment and wants to run something rather than just manage it, this is a rare chance to lead a focused, commercially serious business with genuine scope to grow it.
Key Responsibilities
- Take full ownership of commercial performance, revenue, gross profit, and operating profitability
- Develop and execute the commercial and growth strategy, balancing near-term delivery with longer-term direction
- Personally manage recruitment assignments from client engagement through to placement
- Maintain an active portfolio of clients, candidates, and vacancies and generate consistent personal billings
- Lead new business development: identify, approach, and convert prospective clients
- Grow existing accounts through deeper engagement and identification of additional opportunities
- Negotiate commercial terms and maintain an active, measurable business development pipeline
- Lead, coach, and develop a small team of recruitment consultants, setting clear individual and team targets
- Monitor team activity, productivity, revenue, and gross profit and act where performance falls short
- Manage the P&L, contribute to budgeting and forecasting, and control operating costs
- Report clearly on business performance to the wider Group and shareholders
- Ensure appropriate recruitment processes, compliance standards, and governance are maintained
- Work collaboratively with central Group functions including finance, operations, and marketing
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Requirements
Must-haves
- Significant experience in specialist, professional, or technical recruitment
- Strong, demonstrable personal billing track record with numbers to back it
- Proven history of originating clients, not just managing inherited accounts
- Experience winning new business and converting pipeline into revenue
- Track record of leading and developing a recruitment team
- Experience managing a recruitment business, division, or P&L
- Solid understanding of recruitment economics: revenue, gross profit, margins, operating costs
- Comfortable being measured against individual and team financial targets
- High degree of autonomy and accountability, without reliance on significant infrastructure
- Entrepreneurial, commercially driven approach
- Experience navigating difficult periods: rebuilding pipelines, replacing clients, managing underperformance
Nice-to-haves
- Background spanning both permanent and contract recruitment
- Experience presenting to or reporting into a group or shareholder structure
- Exposure to a broad range of professional or technical disciplines rather than a single niche
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What Success Looks Like
- Revenue, gross profit, and profitability are measurably higher at the end of year one than at the start
- Meaningful new clients won and converted into active, billing relationships
- Existing accounts expanded and the overall client base more diversified
- The team performing with greater consistency, accountability, and commercial discipline, with consultants developing as stronger billers
- A credible commercial plan in place for years two and three, with the business showing genuine momentum rather than a single strong year
Team and Culture
- A small, commercially focused team where everyone is expected to contribute directly to revenue
- Limited separation between leadership and delivery: the MD leads from the front and sets the tone through their own activity
- Accountable, results-oriented culture with clear targets and a focus on consistent performance
- Operates with considerable autonomy, with strategic direction set at Group level and day-to-day ownership sitting firmly with the MD
Challenges
- No large infrastructure to lean on: the MD must personally generate commercial momentum at the same time as leading the team, with limited management layers between them
- Building consistent, diversified performance rather than relying on peaks, key clients, or strong individual months requires real commercial discipline from day one
- The role demands genuine ownership of difficult decisions, including people and performance issues, without waiting for direction from above
- Balancing an active personal desk with leadership, coaching, financial oversight, and business development is a real daily tension, and the person who thrives here will see that as the point of the role, not a drawback
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