Born 1975 in Sheffield, Jim had an early head for business and gained extra pocket money as a 14 year old boy selling worn Levis jeans. Jim remembers one of his best friends had a milk round and he could earn about £30 per week; Jim was very envious of this as he couldn’t get a milk round because they were so popular with school kids. So he was always looking for ways to try and earn some extra money.

Opportunity knocked in the form of Jim’s friend’s father, who was a market trader. He would always have an assortment of worn jeans in all sorts of sizes which his son would sell to his circle of friends. As his son was 3 years older than Jim, he convinced him that he could sell the smaller sizes to his age group. Jim would sell the jeans on a sale our return basis and although the sizes available were very mixed, he would clear £5 to £10 per item, which was far better than the £5 going rate for a paper round!

After completing his GCSE’s, Jim studied Business and Finance for two years before taking his first role in a commercial environment. This was working in a telephone based position, which involved calling customers who had purchased new cars from a Ford dealership throughout a three year lifecycle. Jim was responsible for ensuring that customers were satisfied after the point of purchase. He also sold the benefits of the dealership and had to entice customers back to purchase a new vehicle at the end of the three year life cycle.

In 1998, at the age of 22 Jim took a year out to travel around the Far East, Australia and New Zealand. He returned in October 1999 with some great memories, new life experiences and a new set of life skills. Upon arriving home Jim had an overdraft that needed paying quickly, so he applied for several temporary posts and asked the person answering the phone how quickly they needed someone in place because he needed some work urgently!

One of the roles advertised was for a Temporary Assistant in a busy recruitment office with Kinetic. The lady who answered the phone said that Jim could be interviewed the same day. Jim remembers thinking:

“I didn’t really give recruitment much thought in terms of a career and the main reason for taking the temporary post with Kinetic was because I’d managed to negotiate the hourly pay rate from £4.00 to £4.25 per hour, which was better than the £4.00 which was being offered on the other temporary post at B.T!”

Jim’s first job was to ring through a pile of Engineers’ C.V’s and find out who was available for work. The C.V’s all looked the same to an inexperienced Recruiter, but Jim was hooked. He loved the fast pace of the phones and started to pride himself on filling jobs that no other Recruiter could. By December he was offered a permanent position as a Trainee Recruitment Consultant. Throughout 2000 and 2001 Jim moved away from resourcing candidates and into a full time business acquisition post for Kinetic’s Yorkshire Region.

On reflection, Jim learnt more about business in that period than any other time before it. He truly loved working for Kinetic from the very first day he joined. Jim couldn’t quite get used to just how much input he could have in the direction of Kinetic’s day to day business; he recalls that there was so much passion around and even though the company’s operation was not savvy by today’s standards they were certainly a dynamic organisation that people could be proud to work for.

After taking 5 months out to travel again towards late 2001 and early 2002, Jim returned to the UK and to Kinetic. This time he took on the role of Branch Manager for the then challenged Midlands Region. Jim had some fantastic successes with a great team of people and the training he received throughout the course of his 2-3 years with Kinetic was fantastic. He acquired a good skill base to build upon. Over the next 4 years Jim spent two years as a Branch Manager and two years as a Regional based Business Manager, with a strong focus on moving the business mix into the higher margin engineering work.

An accolade to Jim’s hard work and vision was successfully forming Kinetic Rail. This division was established in 2006 after Jim reached a crossroads in his career. After studying the success and growth of other leading Technical Recruiters that served the high value, high investment markets such as Morson, Matchtec and indeed the success of Kinetic Technical, Jim knew this was where he wanted to progress his own career.

After seeking the advice of some of his trusted colleagues, Jim started dialogue with Neil Smith and Jo Heseltine to determine a new sector for Kinetic to break into. Based on these discussions, over a period of 3 Months, Jim began looking at several potential markets, including Construction, Aerospace and Rail. He finally decided on Rail due to the growing rail passenger numbers and the forecasted investment in the UK rail market. And so Kinetic Rail was born.

The first employees of Kinetic Rail were Jim and a colleague, Justyn Faulkner, who was tempted away from his post as a Branch Manager in South Yorkshire to join Jim in setting the foundations of Kinetic Rail. Over the next year the business became a Limited Company. Since forming it has seen rapid growth. It now employs 11 staff and has a forecasted turnover of in excess of £5,000,000 during 2008 – 2009, with a net profitability of over £200,000.

The business specialises in the recruitment of Senior Engineers and Managers to construction projects within the Rail industry. In addition to this, a Roads & Highways team has been set up to work on the same business model, but for Construction and Maintenance projects within the Roads & Highways sector. Jim plans to expand the current business and also intends to develop an overseas operation too.

Although Kinetic Rail is still at the very early stages of growth, Jim believes success to date has come from keeping their strategy simple and keeping the business niche. Importantly, Jim feels that establishing a great team of skilful and passionate people has also been paramount to this early success. The team has the capability to effectively deliver Kinetic Rail’s business model, whilst constantly striving to improve operations. Jim strongly appreciates the overwhelming support that Kinetic Rail has had from the different support functions within Kinetic’s back office, which truly reflects the company’s entrepreneurial culture. Outside of work life, Jim acts as a Landlord for a small portfolio of rented houses, plays competitive squash (quite badly) and is due to marry in the summer of 2009.