SSQ's millionaire aim

16-Apr-2008

Sitting in the classically elegant 17th century Montrose House, Lloyd Grossman’s dulcet tones of ‘Who lives in a house like this?’ were hanging palpably in the air. The Grade II listed building near Richmond, whose previous owners include the Baron of the Exchequer for King Charles II, who built a tunnel leading under the house down to the Thames, and more recently the entertainer Tommy Steele, now belongs to Gareth Quarry, co-founder and one of four directors of legal recruitment consultancy Shilton Sharpe Quarry (SSQ).

“The tunnel was built as a quick getaway,” Quarry explains, lifting up the original trap door in the hallway leading to the kitchen to reveal the underground opening. “It’s blocked up now, due to health and safety reasons, but the original owner realised that it would only be a matter of time before the King discovered his taxes were being creamed off, and when the King’s men came knocking, he scarpered down the tunnel to the River Thames and made good his escape.”

Back in the sitting room, Quarry’s honesty and openness to the first question comes across in stark contrast to any dodgy dealings by previous Montrose House owners.

“Why didn’t I pursue a career as a solicitor? Basically, I found the practice of law stultifyingly dull,” he says. “Getting up at 6am to do something dull every day of your life is just not worth it.”

Dull is most definitely not how to describe his current business. SSQ has been busy innovating its working practices by creating client and candidate extranets to provide a “totally transparent service”. The company claims to have pioneered the use of this technology in the legal recruitment sector.

“As well as our innovation, transparency and quality are what we’re passionate about — they are what sets us apart from other consultancies,” Quarry adds.

That SSQ won Best Legal Recruitment Firm last year and has been shortlisted in no less than three categories — Best Legal, Best Client Care and Best Small to Medium Recruitment Firm to Work For — at this year’s Recruiter Awards for Excellence, sponsored by Thomas International, is proof that the company is continuing to perform well. So how did Quarry get to this point in his career?

The business of recruitment more or less came about as a mistake, he admits. “I met my wife Jill at Cambridge [University], when we were both studying for the law. We both graduated and I worked for four years as an international trade lawyer. Then,” he says, “I decided to go off and study for an MBA. We actually married the day after I was awarded my MBA.

“I was able to use what I’d learnt on my MBA course and,” he acknowledges, “as Jill was by now a partner in a City law firm, I had the luxury of being able to take a risk in setting up something new.

“Back in 1988, when I founded the Quarry Dougall (QD) Group — I invited Alastair Dougall, a barrister, to join me — I noticed there was a gap in the market, in that there were few recruitment consultancies aimed specifically at lawyers and none that employed only qualified lawyers as consultants.

“I believe that to have empathy with lawyers, you need to have recruitment consultants who were lawyers themselves. Consultants who were previously lawyers have more perception of what is needed.”

He says he could see that legal recruitment could be big business in a niche market. “There were no limits, in my mind, as to how big the business could grow. It was fortunate that the really big players [Spencer Stuart, Korn/Ferry, Heidrick & Struggles] hadn’t turned their attention to law,” he explains.

His insight in those early days was certainly justified. Last December Quarry was included as one of the 100 pioneers in law in the UK during the past 20 years in The Lawyer’s 20th anniversary Hall of Fame. Editor of The Lawyer, Catrin Griffiths, says about him: “Gareth Quarry’s career is emblematic of the rise of recruiters within the law. Quarry Dougall was one of the dominant forces in legal recruitment in the 1990s, and engineered many of the big partner moves in that decade.”

The business grew to be the global market leader in legal recruitment with 180 employees in 10 countries and TMP Worldwide, knowing a good thing when it saw it, acquired the QD Group for £45m in 2000. At that time the group was turning over a gross profit of £17m, with net profit before tax in excess of £4m.

Quarry stayed within TMP for the next three years before resigning in 2003. He explains: “Growing Quarry Dougall from nothing to nearly 200 people was fine. But now you’re part of a business of 12,000 employees, which takes a different set of business skills and talent. It just wasn’t me. “It felt like going from steering a dingy to steering a supertanker,” he admits.

According to Quarry, for him recruitment is all about entrepreneurialism; recruiters are either entrepreneurs or part of an entrepreneurial company. However, he concedes that there are people in recruitment — who he refers to as “journeymen” — who are equally as happy to rise to the top in public companies, rather than branch out on their own. He never considered that route.

“I love the stand and fall of the entrepreneurial approach. Building businesses up from nothing — for me, that’s not work, that’s fun,” he says with a smile.

However, as much as he believes most recruiters have this entrepreneurial flair, he warns that the way some operate in the industry will eventually lead to their undoing. “We’ve had a wonderful seven years [in the recruitment industry, but in these times of uncertainty we’re going to see some fall off a cliff,” he cautions.

He explains that it is not necessarily their lack of business acumen that would cause some recruiters to fail, but the way they conduct their business. “If you behave honourably, you can achieve more or the same as those who don’t,” he says. “I would rather new consultants who join SSQ come with no contacts at all and start from scratch, rather than joining us with a large list that has been gained unscrupulously.”

Quarry gave around 25% of the sale of QD Group to his employees. He says that at the time his peers in the industry rang him up and said he was a fool.

“I didn’t care,” he shrugs. “I couldn’t have grown QD without those people. I didn’t need any more money. Giving it away was absolutely the right thing to do.”

And from gifting £10m of the proceeds, Quarry estimates that he has spawned 25 start-up businesses, including legal recruiter First Counsel and financial search consultancy Kinsey Allen.

“It’s a nice accolade and, yes, it gives me a warm feeling,” he admits.

When he left TMP, he invested in several ventures, including a German legal media and publishing business. Then, in 2005, he joined forces with Nick Shilton and Gavin Sharpe of Shilton Sharpe International to form Shilton Sharpe Quarry.

“As well as continuing to place individuals in the legal sector, the powerhouse of SSQ, we find entire teams — sometimes even entire firms — and undertake corporate mergers. In some respects we act like a corporate finance house,” he says.

Quarry is proud of the fact that SSQ is the only pan-European legal search company. “We go where our clients want to go,” he says.

At the moment he is seeing tremendous growth in Germany, Italy and Spain. “However, we don’t relocate Brits out there. We only employ local people who have been experienced lawyers,” he emphasises. “And the European businesses are not made to feel like outposts. The top people, including Nick, Gavin and myself, are constantly out on the road [in mainland Europe] meeting As well as its mainstay legal marketplace, SSQ is also looking for entrepreneurs to set up their own companies, with the equity backing of SSQ from day one.

“Our aim is to make a number of millionaires out of the business. We’ve done it before,” he says.

The company is also looking at other regions to expand into, including the Far East and, in keeping with Quarry’s contrarian approach, the US. “Now is the time to invest in search companies,” he ventures.

Doesn’t he sometimes want to take more of a back seat, let the company tick over and enjoy an early retirement?

“What sort of example would that be to my kids?” he laughs. “I come from an un-moneyed background and I want my children to be driven, to see their parents striving hard. When I’m lying on my deathbed, I want to look back and ask: ‘Did I enjoy my life? Did I give it a go?’

“And anyway, I don’t see this as work in any way. I see it as fun.”


Gareth Quarry: Snapshot

1978-1981 Law at Selwyn College, Cambridge — MA

1982-1986 Richards Butler (City law firm) — International trade lawyer

1984 Qualified as a solicitor

1986-1988 MBA

1988-2000 Quarry Dougall/The QD Group, founder and chief executive

2005 Founded Shilton Sharpe Quarry with Nick Shilton and Gavin Sharpe, all joint directors

2007 April: SSQ won Best Legal Recruitment Firm category at Recruiter’s Awards for Excellence, sponsored by Thomas International

2007 December: included in The Lawyer’s 20th anniversary Hall of Fame as among the 100 pioneers in law during the past 20 years in the UK