“It’s a consulting business with a bit of a twist,” Watt tells Recruiter. “And the twist is that the group overall will be providing a fairly broad range of services, and a key one will be recruitment.”
The firm will have ex-British Hospitality Association boss Jeremy Logie as chief executive, as well as restaurant entrepreneur Michael Gottlieb and hotelier Peter Tyrie as managing directors.
Watt tells Recruiter that the firm was founded out of his belief that “business wants a fairly integrated approach, a holistic approach”, rather than just the relatively narrow services that a recruitment consultancy provides, adding: “Just filling a hole is not adding value.”
The group, which launches officially on 27 February, will be working with recruitment and staffing providers Barrett Clark, TCMO and Xpress Recruitment, all of whom are independent firms, but will operate as part of the group structure, as well as the newly-formed Buell Search Solutions.
Watt says that at Berkeley Scott, the recruitment consultancy he founded, there was always a focus on providing “a much wider range of services than is perhaps common in recruitment.”
Watt nonetheless adds: “There will always be a place for your bog-standard agencies.”