Martin Brown and Steven Henderson

Martin Brown and Steven Henderson

Martin Brown, former managing director of The Greenery UK, has launched a new recruitment company in food, produce and related businesses.

Brown has teamed up with recruitment specialist Steven Henderson to form Henderson Brown. The company will help clients fill posts in commercial buying, technical, engineering, supply chain, quality assurance, NPD, production and operations functions, with salaries from £18,000 a year upwards.

Henderson Brown will headhunt candidates for senior roles where other approaches to recruitment may be less than successful - for example, if a senior employee is too focused or busy in their current position to seek another role.

The company also aims to help clients attract individuals who are actively seeking employment, using well-worded, targeted adverts in the appropriate media. The aim is to swiftly build an extensive database of jobseekers with a proven track record.

Brown said: “We could write reams about what Henderson Brown’s values are and what we stand for but we maintain the belief that recruitment is a simple process. Having been on the client side - as well as being headhunted as a candidate - I have seen the pitfalls from both sides.”

Brown believes offering a succession planning route for clients will give Henderson Brown a point of difference in the recruitment world.

He told freshinfo: “Having been on the client side for 20 years I know what a business is looking for and I am not sure that gap is being filled at the moment. When I was managing director of The Greenery nobody ever turned round to me and asked me what my succession plan was. People are the most important thing in the industry, and it can tend to be a little bit kneejerk when somebody resigns.”

Henderson said that the pair “spotted an opportunity to offer a no-nonsense, no-frills approach to recruitment, where we stick to basic common sense values of good communication and good judgement and sound business sense”.

Next on the agenda for Henderson Brown is to build a candidate base, spend heavily in advertising and generally raise awareness, added Brown.