After years of economic growth, the roar of the Celtic Tiger that is the Irish economy is now somewhat muted. But there is no sign this has dimmed the ambitions of Gerald ‘Ger’ Fitzgerald and his fellow executives at Premier roup.
Indeed, if anything the reverse is true for the company that began life in Cork in the Republic of Ireland in 1988
and only came to UK prominence after last year’s audacious acquisition of the Imprint Group.

However, the company has refused to rest on its laurels, and Fitzgerald, chief executive of the group’s UK and Netherlands operation, is now hard at work on the next stage of its development.


After the acquisition of accounting and finance recruiter Nigel Lynn in 2005, and its successful bid for Imprint, Premier Group has embarked on an ambitious programme to rebrand Nigel Lynn and the former Imprint companies — finance recruiter ECHM and financial services recruiter Morgan McKinley — under a single name. The other Imprint companies — Wood Hamill and Imprint Search & Selection — were bought by Brian
Hamill, former CEO of Imprint, in 2007, before Premier’s acquisition of Imprint.

Fitzgerald says the importance of brand was brought home to him after Premier Group acquired Nigel Lynn. Fitzgerald says Nigel Lynn “always struggled” because the brand wasn’t a match for the quality of the service it provided. “Without the right brand you really struggle to
leverage your business and that’s one of the reasons rebranding was so important to us,” he says.

“Brand creates a promise. Promise creates an expectation. Expectation creates trust based on judgement of delivery. Trust builds reputation and reputation builds brand. It’s the full cycle,” he says.

Fitzgerald says Morgan McKinley was the clear frontrunner when it came to deciding on which of its UK businesses to base its rebranding. “Morgan McKinley has a fantastic reputation, and is really well known in financial services and in the City. And it was already an known brand in Asia, so there was an awful lot we could leverage from,” he says.

The rebranding itself, which went live on 28 April, was carried out by Glazers, a specialist design agency, with support from Morgan McKinley’s own in-house design team. Already six months in the making, Fitzgerald says the exercise will end up costing “probably £1m” by the time it is completed over the next 18-24 months. Fitzgerald promises a more vibrant and up-to-date look (with the company’s new logo providing a taste of things to come).

However, for Fitzgerald this is no cosmetic makeover. Its significance goes far deeper than just a new website or redesigned headed notepaper. “It reflects the real confidence we have in the business, in the people and in the markets we are in,” he says.

The new description for the business — ‘Morgan McKinley: global professional recruitment consultancy’ — is a clear indication of the company’s focus and the scope of its ambition. Moreover, it soon becomes clear from Fitzgerald’s comments that this is not simply a rebranding exercise in the marketing sense, but goes hand-in-hand with deeper changes to the business.

“My role is to take those businesses, knit them together, make them work together and create a brand that has a canopy of credibility across a range of sectors,” he says.

This will bring real business benefits, Fitzgerald argues. These include cost savings from the integration of shared services such as credit control, and only having to build one brand rather than three. There are also plans afoot to combine all the company’s candidate databases onto one platform. “The integration will make us more profitable,” Fitzgerald promises.

According to Fitzgerald, clients and candidates of the former ECHM, Nigel Lynn and Morgan McKinley companies will also notice a number of important changes.

“Clients will receive a full service offering across our key markets of financial services, tax, public sector and industry with access to a vastly increased number of candidates,” he says.

“It’s about a whole philosophy of doing business, ensuring that if somebody walks into a Morgan McKinley office in Manchester, London or in Hong Kong for example, they receive the same high level of service. There must be a consistent service experience across our network of Morgan McKinley offices. This will require a significant investment in the standardisation of systems, processes, infrastructure and training; all of which we are totally committed to doing over the next two years.”

At the same time, both clients and candidates will continue to benefit from specialist teams focusing on niche areas such as tax or public sector. For Fitzgerald, specialist focus is “an absolute”, a conviction that goes back to his sister’s recruitment business in Ireland. “I was that generalist doing whatever was required, but you don’t build traction as a generalist in my view,” he says.

La crème, Premier’s office support business, is not part of the rebranding. “This is a funky vibrant brand, quite different to Morgan McKinley, that we think has great legs to it in terms of where it can go, ” explains Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald is dismissive of any suggestion that in these challenging economic times management might be better employed ensuring the company’s survival. “There’s no better time to be doing this,” he says. Indeed, “it has been hugely positive” in energising people and showing the company is “a serious player in the market”. He adds: “Sometimes businesses focus on the nitty gritty and trying to stay alive, and forget where they are going.”

Fitzgerald accepts that when integrating discrete businesses, success is never guaranteed. Getting a good cultural fit is “the unknown factor you can never quantify”, he adds.

And he appears genuinely regretful about January’s “very amicable” departure of Rob Thesiger, the former chief executive of Imprint Group, who had “different priorities”, though he doesn’t elaborate.

Though the rebranding of Premier Group’s UK and Netherlands business is still in its early stages, it is clearly the blueprint for the future, with tentative plans to extend it into its Irish businesses “maybe in 2010”.

And similarly, while Fitzgerald’s current focus is on the UK, where the group is without a geographical presence in Scotland or in Birmingham, the group has big ideas to expand further into continental Europe, beyond its single office in Amsterdam.

Ultimately, Fitzgerald says the goal is to rival the likes of Michael Page and Robert Walters on a global scale, building on its existing presence in Asia. “We started by saying ‘We want to be the best in Ireland, then the best in the UK’. Ultimately we want to be the best globally and wesee no reason why we can’t achieve this,” he says.

If this talk of global supremacy sounds like a tall order, Premier Group’s track record suggests its rivals should take it seriously. In winning the bitter battle to take over Imprint in 2008, it did so from right under the noses of international multi-sector recruiter OPD and specialist professional recruiter Hydrogen. “They weren’t looking at those Irish guys coming over the hill,” Fitzgerald recalls.

After working in sales, Fitzgerald says he fell into recruitment in 1996, working in his sister’s business. After buying it from her, he subsequently sold it to Cork recruiter Pat Fitzgerald (no relation), the present chief executive of Premier Group. From then on the fortunes of
Premier and Fitzgerald have been inextricably linked.

Fitzgerald is reticent about his own career plans, preferring to emphasise the almost collegiate nature of Premier Group’s “very closely knit management team”, with which his future at this juncture would appear to be firmly tied. “My objective is to work with the others to build a really successful branded business that is seen as a market leader in the markets we operate in,” he says.

And though Fitzgerald is initially reluctant to name the companies he expects to be jostling with for supremacy, fearing it gives the appearance the new look Morgan McKinley is modelling itself on others, his resistance soon gives way. “Suffice it to say,” he says, “Page or Walters or whoever will know they are competing against us, because we will be very proactive in maximising our position.”

That said, Fitzgerald admits, he can’t be sure how long it will take for the next stage of the group’s development to be successful, admitting this will depend on the market. However, it’s clear it won’t be for lack of drive or belief. “As a group the team has always been driven by ambition
and its absolute enthusiasm to believe we can succeed,” he says.

Indeed, if achievement is any match, and if the rebranding come integration produces results, the trajectory of the man from Kilkenny, along with Premier Group itself could well continue to be upwards.

GER FITZGERALD: A SNAPSHOT
Home town: Kilkenny, Republic of Ireland
Title: CEO of Premier Group (UK and Netherlands)
Education: BSc Management — Trinity College, Dublin
Career: 1996-98, ProAction Recruitment
1998-2007, operations director, Premier Group
2007-09, corporate development director, Premier Group
2009- present, CEO, Premier Group UK and Netherlands
Interests: Politics, golf, gardening, horse racing


WHAT IS PREMIER GROUP?

• Premier Group began life in the Republic of Ireland in 1988. It has grown to become an international recruitment business, with 550 staff in 26 offices, across eight countries.
• Following the rebranding, it operates under the following brands:

In Ireland: Accreate, Premier, Brunel, la crème and Verkom
In the UK: Morgan McKinley, la crème
Asia Pacific: Morgan McKinley
Dubai: iQ Selection
The Netherlands: Morgan McKinley