John O'Sullivan

John, owner and chairman of Elite Leaders, is one of the recruitment industries best known and admired entrepreneurs.

Having worked as a director for several of the top global staffing companies, John founded Best International Group which grew to £130million turnover in 18 months which he then sold to the Spring Group in 2003. Now a highly valued NED and strategic adviser to a number of carefully selected companies in the recruitment sector, John is constantly in great demand to work closely with owners and directors of ambitious recruitment businesses across a wide range of disciplines.

John specialises in achieving rapid and sustainable growth for all stakeholders, both organic and by acquisition, in people related businesses, thereby maximising shareholder value through rapidly increased turnover, productivity and profit.

Simon Church  

Simon has twenty two years mainboard experience in the Telecoms and Networking, IT and Recruitment markets. In the early 1990's he was founding Managing Director of two companies (in Multi-media and Cable Television). He has also been on the main board of two firms through IPO. He understands the challenges and opportunities leading and working in listed public companies, mid-sized enterprises and also small start-ups.

He has initiated planned and implemented organizational change; re-skilling and re-focusing sales and business development initiatives in two LSE listed staffing companies, Glotel plc and Parity plc.

Miles Hunt  

Miles is the founder and Chief Executive of Empresaria. He is a former lawyer who has been involved in a number of successful start up businesses. Recent awards include Staffing industry Entrepreneur of the Year (Recruitment International) and national finalist Ernst &Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

Ann Swain  

Ann Swain is the Chief Executive of the newly created Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo), which was formed in 2009 to provide a strong and united voice for the professional recruitment industry and to enforce a clear set of business standards. She served since 1999 as Chief Executive of APSCo's predecessor, the Association of Technology Staffing Companies (ATSCo), the trade association for the technology staffing industry. Under Ann's stewardship, APSCo grew from 14 founder members to over 250, with a total annual turnover of about £6.5bn.

Ann was the founder in 1988 of Learning Curve, the specialist training company which was acquired by the Delphi Group in 1997. She was then appointed UK Director of Computer People until early in 1999. Prior to founding Learning Curve, Ann had a career in IT recruitment, HR and training.

She is co-author of the highly acclaimed book on recruitment called The Professional Recruiter's Handbook, published by Kogan Page in April 2009 and was made a Fellow of the NSPCC Full Stop Campaign, in recognition of her outstanding service and fundraising contributions.