RPO, UK, Award, Recruitment

RPO innovator wins UK Businesswoman of the Year award

Rosaleen Blair, Chief Executive, Alexander Mann Solutions - the UK's first dedicated recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) firm, has won Britain's premier award for businesswomen - the UK Businesswoman of the Year. Rosaleen joined the Alexander Mann Group over ten years ago. Identifying a gap in the market in 1996, Rosaleen founded Alexander Mann Solutions, a specialist RPO business. She has transformed the way in which major companies manage recruitment, and in the process is building a GBP300 million global business employing 800+ people across three continents.

In order to streamline the Group, a divestment program of all other businesses has been underway which now allows a total focus on its RPO proposition.

Rosaleen's ability to lead by example has also won plaudits. AMS has secured Best Companies Accreditation "Star Status" for the past 2 years with 88 percent of employees being proud to work at the company and 91 percent saying they were personally inspired by Rosaleen.

According the the Telegraph, "She is Vivacious, fiercely competitive and not afraid to be tagged 'touchy-feely' in an industry that others regard as hard-nosed, she says she came up with the concept of recruitment process outsourcing in a 'eureka moment' six months after moving to London over 10 years ago."
 
"Money is not what motivates me," Blair says. "I love this business. I am very much driven by it. I never feel we are doing enough; I always feel there is very much more that we should be doing better for our clients. I always think about what we could be, should be and can be doing."

Founding Alexander Mann Solutions from scratch, she has persuaded global giants such as computer maker Hewlett-Packard, mobile phones group Vodafone, investment bank Credit Suisse, insurer Prudential and business advisers Deloitte to outsource their recruitment processes to the outfit. For Hewlett-Packard alone, Alexander Mann will typically recruit about 10,000 people a year. In total, the firm recruits "well over 50,000" staff a year for clients, says Blair. It also now has 800 of its own staff, many of whom work in the offices of clients around the world.

According to Blair, Alexander Mann Solutions is still Britain's only specialist "recruitment process outsourcing" company, managing the recruitment of all staff for its clients and ranging from just below board level to the janitor or groundsman.

It carries out the first job interview for clients and manages the process of sourcing talent, using headhunters and recruitment companies, and bringing companies right through to their final recruitment decisions. It also manages job moves, restructurings, redundancies and outplacements.

"We help people on their way in, in their internal career process and we support them on the way out," Blair is fond of saying. "That's probably the nicest way to put it."

Sally Warmington, Veuve Clicquot (award sponsor) Brand Director said, "We are delighted that our winner truly reflects the character of our founder, one of the world's first great business women. Rosaleen mirrors Madame Clicquot's acumen and her pioneering spirit. Her innovative and visionary approach has transformed the international world of recruitment. Inspirational in her leadership, the core values of her business are based on a profound sense of social responsibility which, in turn, has created an environment for a uniquely committed and motivated workforce.”