Leadership Team

Chris joined the business in 2011 as part of the Macildowie Training Programme and progressed through our Part-Qualified, Qualified and Senior Financial Recruitment desks. As part of a business growth strategy he recruited for Blue Chip clients in Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes, quickly growing and developing his desk.

After a successful period of growth in those markets, Chris established our Milton Keynes division, before returning to Leicester to run the Financial recruitment team. Following his success in those roles, Chris became Regional Managing Director for the North East Midlands and South Yorkshire.

He also specialises in Senior Executive Finance Recruitment across the wider East Midlands.

Chris' Client Testimonials

ALEX HILL

Commercial Finance Manager at Weetabix

"Chris Huffen was excellent. He listened understood what I was looking for but challenges me in the right way about what my next step needed to be. Really appreciated all his support."

SHETUL MASHRU

Group Marketing Accountant / Analyst (Manager) at Travis Perkins / Wickes

“I thoroughly recommend Chris for your recruitment needs, because he makes the recruitment process more structured and simplified than others, thereby ensuring a smooth journey from candidate registration to employment offer(s).

His competency and professionalism is the reason as to why I have already recommended Chris to my colleagues and friends looking to progress in their career.”

VICCI TAYLOR

Recruiter (Credit Risk, Finance and Marketing) at Barclaycard

“I have worked with Chris since joining Barclaycard in November 2011. Chris' understanding of Barclaycards requirements and culture is second to none and has provided some outstanding candidates. He always has Barclaycards best interest at heart and can see that his view is quality rather than quantity. I look forward to working with Chris in the future and would highly recommend Chris as an exceptional recruiter.”

Darius joined Macildowie in 2010. Having built an enviable reputation as an HR recruiter of choice across Northamptonshire, and leading our HR and Sales and Marketing Divisions, Darius was appointed as Regional Managing Director for the South East Midlands. He also specialises in Senior Executive HR Recruitment across the East Midlands.

Darius has pioneered various networking and Thought Leadership events for our customers and believes that working in a true partnership based on transparency and trust is the key to a long term sustainable relationship.

I’m a recruitment outsourcing expert.

Having worked for three of the country’s most successful recruitment outsourcing firms, in different guises and across vastly different accounts – from Operations Manager of the largest MSP in Europe, to the lone running of an SME-sized RPO – I’ve experienced a lot in my nearly 10 years in recruitment.

I believe the future for permanent recruitment for every company SME-sized and above, should be a partnership focused RPO. Most businesses state that their people are their biggest asset, and an RPO is the best recruitment method to protect those assets when they’re in the process of entering your business. In tandem with Macildowie’s Retention Service, our RPO is also the best way to help protect those assets when they’re already in your business too.

I believe all RPOs should focus on three key things for their clients: cost, time and talent.

In a post-Covid-19 society, these things will matter even more - with budgets being tighter, smaller teams doing more, and the importance of “the best, not the first” candidate being paramount - and therefore the benefit of an RPO relationship to businesses will be even greater.

Macildowie’s Managed MRS has those three elements at its heart, but it can go further than that, and in what we believe, a unique way.

Macildowie’s MRS is small and flexible and as such its service can genuinely be tailored to exactly what your business needs from a recruitment function (something that larger outsourcers with significant overheads are unable to do). We’re also able to offer two exceptional value-adding services which – from what I understand no other competitor is currently doing – in our Retention Services and People Hub facility. All of which is underpinned by years of quality Macildowie service.

My aim is for Macildowie MRS to be a trusted and valued partner for our clients, delivering on the three key objectives of cost, time and talent – and doing it in a unique way that we can be proud of.

James is COO at macildowie.  He is responsible for ensuring we have effective operational procedures in place to secure the functionality of the business and assist the CEO to drive extensive and sustainable growth while supporting and enhancing Macildowie’s unique culture. He is responsible for project and programme management and procurement as well as our internal Business Support, Administration, Business Systems, Marketing and HR functions.

More recently James has built a new social media strategy for the business based on cutting edge practices from outside the recruitment industry.

James' aim is to ensure our operational systems and processes deliver the same kinds of quality experiences and results that our people do, optimising average revenue per head and making our business more easily scaleable.

He has over 25 years experience as a recruiter and manager of recruitment teams, as well as significant business process and system change experience.

James joined Macildowie in 1995 not long after the business was started. He progressed from recruiting part-qualified to senior executive appointments in finance across the Midlands. In 2002 James launched our HR Division, growing it for a number of years. In 2011 James was seconded away from recruitment for nine months to manage the selection, implementation and development of our brand new internal recruitment system.

In May 2013 James moved full time into a role as Head of Business Systems, acting as a change agent for the business, directing the development and training of our business processes and systems to most effectively support our client base. In July 2015 he was appointed to the board as Director of Business Systems and in May 2019 became Chief Operating Officer.

James' Client Testimonials

Diane Jones, Head of HR

“James is a credible and professional recruiter who is always very customer centric in his approach and adopts an honest and proactive style. He is a class apart from most in his profession.”

Dominika Nowak, Senior EMEA Recruiter

“I had the opportunity of working with James when resourcing for our HR function and found him extremely competent. James tends to ask all the relevant questions, never takes things at face value level, delivers a broad spectrum of relevant candidates to ensure he covers as many options as possible and his knowledge of the Midlands market is second to none. I would not hesitate recommending him.”

James is CEO at Macildowie. He has been with the company since 1997 and was instrumental in the opening of the Leicester office in 2000. He launched the Procurement and Supply Chain division in 2009 and more recently, the Sales and Marketing division of the business.

His role now is very customer focused and he works to develop the business in areas including:

• customer development,
• new client and candidate attraction,
• marketing
• PR
• and the training and development of Macildowie’s own people.

James has been particularly active over the past few years developing Macildowie's Retention Services and RPO service offerings.  He is also an active part of our CEO forums.

James' cllient testimonials

"I attended the LinkedIn workshop ran by James, which was a great use of a couple of hours in order to learn how to optimise my LinkedIn profile. I had previously attended a good course at Penna, this course with James reinforced, enhanced and built on what I had learnt previously.”

“James provides useful and insightful advice for executives looking to enhance their networking and job search capabilities. He is a straightforward and very enthusiastic person with an excellent ability to get his training across in a thoroughly motivational way.”

“James, from our first meeting was the consumate professional. His help and input was so influential in me finding not just a job but 'the' job. He is an outstanding communicator and with his warm and affable nature made me feel really comfortable in his presence. I cannot praise him and his team highly enough.”

Margarita is the Divisional Director for the Public Sector and Not for Profit Division which she established in 2018. She has been covering Public Sector and NFP since 2004 and has had national role since 2006, so she has strong knowledge and understanding and initiatives that affect the sector. The Division is responsible for permanent, fixed term and interim recruitment as well as consultancy solutions across Finance, Procurement & Commissioning, Project, Programme Management & Transformation, Marcoms, Regen & Economic Development, Policy and Performance, Planning as well as Executive appointments. The Division covers Local & Central Government, NHS, Education, Social Housing and Charities across the whole of the UK.

The Division has recently secured a place on the Crown Commercial Services RM6160 Public Sector Framework that covers the NHS and the Wider Public Sector. We also work in partnership with CIPFA and help sponsor events and seminars for the wider CIPFA members across the Midlands and nationwide. In addition Margarita and the team is able to offer psychometric assessments during restructures as well as new recruitment processes and deliver tailored client and candidate LinkedIn and CPD events.

Richard is the Managing Director of Macildowie’s Executive Search and Outplacement Support capabilities and as such has full oversight for the operations for both practices. Richard is responsible for sourcing Director and C-Suite level candidates for private sector companies on a retained basis. Margarita Fedoseyeva is responsible for executive search for private and NFP organisations. From an outplacement perspective, Richard manages workshops focussed on improving employability.

Richard also runs Macildowie’s MD/CEO Mastermind Forum and our NED Network. Both are peer-to-peer mentoring and networking groups which meet ona quarterly basis. Please connect with Rich if you would like further details.

Prior to working at Macildowie, Rich has recruited into both the private and public sectors in the UK, Australia and New Zealand in a specialised recruitment career that spans 20 years.

After starting out as a trainee at Macildowie 10 years ago, Zoe is currently Associate Director based from our Nottingham office. Previously, Zoe has managed and grown our Clerical finance and Commercial Divisions across our Nottingham and Leicester offices. Currently, Zoe continues to support our Commercial Division in Nottingham in addition to assisting across the business with Training, Development, Mentoring, Recruitment and other projects.

Zoe also heads up our charity committee at Macildowie, working with local charities and organising fundraising events throughout the year.

Zoe's client testimonials

Edward Fernandez

“Zoe is a true professional in every way. She will work extremely hard to place you and is always honest. I would happily recommend her professional services as a recruitment consultant. Good luck and thank you.”

Nick Weatherspoon

“Zoe has supported the recruitment of key roles of the HR/Payroll Team, often at short notice. Zoe is great at building relationships to fully understand the businesses that she is finding resource for - I have no hesitation in recommending Zoe.”

Nicholas Carey

"I would like to put on record for you, my sincere thanks to both Ben and Zoe for the manner in which they conduct themselves and represent Macildowie.
I have recently found myself out of work and I have of course used the services of a few well-known Recruitment Agencies. Macildowie is the only one I will recommend to anyone.
Ben and Zoe have shown themselves to be unique, in that they are the only people that actually returned a phone call, and responded to emails from me. It doesn't matter that the roles discussed with Ben didn't materialise, or that I'm no longer available to attend my interview with FloGas, it's about them returning contact and doing what they said would do.

People who use your services, like me, are not at all happy about having-to in many cases, and it's a very stressful time, looking for work, staying positive, and coping with the lack of response, silence, and the knock-backs. Simple contact helps.
Customer service is a much thrown-about term, and every business likes to think they have it cracked, but actually very few do. It's just about courtesy and professionalism at a a human interaction level, and Ben and Zoe are a credit to your organisation in this respect.

I won't hesitate to recommend, and should the need arise in the future for me in my new role, to use your services.
Do please pass on my compliments to them both, as I always think good news should travel just as fast as bad news.
​Thanks very much indeed."