Recruitment industry leader Doug Bugie is returning to the UK from several years of consulting in the US to take up the role of chief executive with the franchising arm of search and selection group Antal International.

Bugie will lead the development of Antal International Networks' two franchise businesses, of which one is the extension of its core Antal executive recruitment business. The other is iworkLife, which is targeted at people who want to run their own recruitment business from home.

"I'm just itching to do something operational," Bugie told Recruiter last week. "Antal is an exciting, compelling story for future franchise owners and consultants, and we have to get it out there the right way."

Bugie said that both franchise concepts received significant attention at a recent national franchise event in the UK. It costs £27,500 to obtain an Antal executive recruitment franchise and £10,000 for the iworkLife franchise opportunity. The latter is attracting attention not only from women who may want to run their careers from home, but from men as well. "We think we're really on to a winner there," he said.

Within its first 15 months of operation, iworkLife has established 15 offices. Antal has 65 offices in more than 25 countries.

Bugie is a former chief executive of executive recruitment firm Norman Broadbent and the co-founder of a franchised executive search business, Humana International, which was sold in 1999 to Management Recruiters International. He is a firm believer in franchises. "It's fun seeing other people become successful," he said. "If you can latch onto people's dreams of financial independence and showing their friends and family that they've made it. It's fun to be part of it."

In a prepared statement, Antal founder, chairman and group chief executive Tony Goodwin said: "This is a fantastic time to be in this business and I am delighted that Doug is here helping us grow the business and create value."