WARRINGTON based Adele Carr Financial
Recruitment is celebrating 10 years of providing local independent
financial recruitment consultancy to accountancy practices.
Adele fulfilled an ambition by starting up her own business and was inspired to be a business woman by Joan Collins as Alexis Colby in 1980s TV soap Dynasty. “I loved the power dressing and lifestyle.”
Adele was the first person in her family to go to university where she studied accounting and finance before qualifying as a chartered accountant at PKF in Liverpool. “I was proud to become a chartered accountant but realised after several years of auditing it was not the career for me”.
She applied for a job in industry but on meeting the recruitment consultant she realised she preferred his job instead of the one he was advertising. “It struck me then that I was really a sales person who enjoyed match making and could use my experience to place candidates in finance.”
After a successful corporate career in which she ran the Manchester office of Hays Accountancy Personnel she started a family. “It was not possible to work the same hours and be a full time mum, something had to give”. After a spell at another small recruitment business she decided to go it alone.
The firm expanded from its Warrington base across the north west into a multi million pound operation, opening up four offices, moving into industry and commerce offering temporary in addition to permanent recruitment placing well over 1,000 financial candidates into several hundred businesses.
The business has won awards for being Start Up of the Year and Best Place to Work. Sponsored the Warrington Wolves rugby league team and raised thousands for charity.
Adele now has four children and it has been an important core value of the business for its team to enjoy a work life balance and give back to the community.
“The highlights have included helping so many people achieve their ambitions. It is still the most satisfying part of the job.”
The lowlight was undoubtedly the recession which hit “like a brick wall” in 2008. “We were expanding rapidly at the time and had some very painful decisions to take.” Fortunately the firm never borrowed any money from the bank and was able to recover and last year grew its turnover by nearly 50%.
“Times are tougher now than when we started ten years ago and technology has changed the way we live and work but we have a fantastic team of people in our business and I am very optimistic about the next ten years.”
The firm started its ten year anniversary celebrations with a seminar for clients with motivational triathlete Dave Clamp when special guests included Warrington Wolves’ winger Chris Riley and the Deputy Mayor of Warrington Peter Carey. A raffle helped raise money for St Jospeh’s Family Centre.
