 Hello and welcome to JSA TV and JSA Podcasts, the newsroom for telecom and data center professionals. I'm Jean-Marc Lehman, joining me today is Peter Haniford, Senior Partner at the Executive Search Company Portman Partners. Peter, welcome to JSA. I know this is a bit of a delicate moment because you're talking just a couple of days after your championships, but how are you? Yeah, to be honest, I'm glad it's over. We can get on with work now. It became a bit well-consuming, obviously very disappointed, but we all think that the team did really well, the very young team, and it's the World Cup next year, so fingers crossed. But I must say the Italians played very well, so all credit to them. Yeah, I think the team will learn from what happened this time and actually it's going to be an amazing end, I think. It's just delayed, the coming home is delayed. But look, talking about our industry now, I mean, you're an expert when it comes to finding talent, and that's what you do for leaving as well. So what are the biggest hurdles in our space today when it comes to finding talent? I suppose, as you said, I've been in it a long time, more or less, since the word data center was started. So what's that, 25 years ago, something like that. So I know a lot of people are finding, you know, finding the people isn't the problem, but bearing in mind that they're all, you know, passive, what we call passive high performers, they're not looking to move, but they're at the top of their tree. The problem is always convincing them to move. You're selling them a dream, if you like, you're selling them the opportunity of a better job. So we have to know the client, our client very well, and we have to be convinced that it would be a good move for this particular candidate. So yeah, the challenge is getting them interested in the role, persuading them it's a better move, you know, this is a company with great people, you know, it's a great company, and potentially, you know, a decent compensation as well. That's the challenge. It's just convincing them that this is a good opportunity. It's making dreams happen, even without the people knowing they have a dream, like when you're trying to talk about it. Yeah, we create dreams, yeah, that's a good, I'll put that in the end. Thank you for that. But look, a big part of the discussion today when it comes to staff as well, it's all around inclusivity and diversity. From a recruitment standpoint, how is that kind of being embedded into what you're doing and what the industry is doing on a recruitment front? It's massive. I mean, it's, you know, this four, you know, we work in digital infrastructure, that's all we work in, but we focus on leadership, on people with a passion for sustainability and diversity. It is absolutely huge. And it really was something that kind of, you know, an epiphany for me a couple of years ago was realising that when we talk about diversity, we're talking about diversity of thinking. It isn't necessarily ticking boxes as to ethnicity or gender. It's about getting people that think differently, because that's the way you get innovation. So we, it's massive now. And if not, you know, without exception at every client we work with now, diversity is on their agenda too, especially gender imbalance as well. You know, that's pretty big now. And I've got to say that if we, you know, it wasn't so long ago where if we had to find, you know, somewhere with an engineering qualification, only 6% of women in the UK are qualified engineers. Therefore, it was very difficult, you know, if we've got to find 10, submit 10 resumes to a client, it was very rare that a woman would actually make the shortlist. Now we're being asked, you have to try and find, you know, women to put on the shortlist. And if there were, if there were 10 CVs and they were all equal, I think that, you know, today the woman would get the job. For sure. And I mean, we've seen a lot of the work as well that you've done with Terry. And she's a massive driver when it comes to these things. She's very persuasive, yes. And great at her job. She's the best there is. Yeah, she's usually an ambassador and she's driving change. But you've already kind of mentioned a little bit of what you look for in these people and dealing with the boardroom, because you basically, you pretty much only deal with the boardroom with the big guys. What kind of experience and skills are you looking for when you go out there and look for someone at this stage? Well, well, it depends on the role, obviously, you know, CTO, Chief Sales Officer, whatever the CEO depends what the role is. But what we do up front is we will always establish sort of six key search criteria with the client before we embark on a search. And then we measure candidates against those criteria with the kind of scoring system. It's very subjective to start with. But it gives the client an idea of where this person sort of fits. And they can be, I suppose, you know, in our world in digital infrastructure, inevitably, one of those criteria would be experience of the digital infrastructure sector, whether it's connectivity or data centers or something. But you would normally expect them to know, not always, you know, if it's a financial or, you know, some other role, it's not always necessary. But I would say nine times out of 10, we're looking for people with some experience at the sector. And because it's a leadership role, we're looking for people that I would say make what we call immediate impact. So because this person is going to be a leader, you have to ask the question, you know, what is your impression when you meet this person for the first time? You know, how do they look at, speak and listen? And can they articulate both verbally and in writing? Could they articulate verbally in writing, you know, the benefits of the client's solution, whatever that is. So this, this, yes, it's kind of an intangible. But when you see it, you'd know it, you think this guy looks or this woman or this girl, whatever it is, they really look as though they could, they could do the job. So this immediate impact is still quite important. A bit of the gut feeling always coming in as well. Yeah. And Peter, tell us a little bit more about Portman itself. Tell us about the business who's behind it. Of course, your key piece of the puzzle here, but tell us more about Portman and what you got planned for the future in terms of company? Well, I mean, recruitment per se is a very competitive market. As you say, we're the only people really, well, there are more, there's a few more players now in recruitment and technical and search in our sector. But yeah, you know, 40, 50 years experience, that's a big advantage for us. But nevertheless, you know, we are up against some of these, you know, major big firms in executive search. So we have to fight our corner. Therefore, we're kind of in a state of continual improvement really. We have to make the whole process easy and efficient. We're off to a head start because we know the industry and we will probably know the client. So we don't spend a lot of time, you know, finding out about the job. So that's pretty quick. But we're also looking to make Portman, if you like, the portal, the go-to place for information on the sector and developments in the sector worldwide. So we want people to come to us because we've got all that knowledge about the industry and about the people in it and about the companies in it and what they're doing. You know, we want to make that the, we want to make us the go-to firm. You come to us for the information. And that is all going to be put on our website with, you know, videos and podcasts like this as well, which will drive the need to find the absolute best talent appropriate to the client's business. And it's all about, you know, the right person in the right company. So are we going to see more people say in Asia, more Portman partner people in Asia and other continents? Well, we already have somebody in Asia. So we've got someone in Singapore and we have someone in London. I think the next place we will have somebody is probably in the US. We don't have it. I tend to look out to the US myself. I have somebody else that majors on Europe, somebody that majors on Asia. But I'm kind of, you know, behind it helping with research. But yeah, I think the US is probably the next place where we'll have some form of beachhead here. I look forward to seeing who that is. And if people want to find out more about Portman partners or getting in touch, where could people go to to check out more? Well, the website. So we're trying to make the website the central repository for information and for blogs. We tend to, we like to store them in a library. So it's a permanent place. You can go and check up on various things. And we have, you know, people like Terry and, you know, people like Ian Bitterland who've always got something to say about something. We will give them a voice on our website to be able to articulate, you know, whatever is in their mind at the time. But of course, but we also use LinkedIn. Our LinkedIn page is probably the place where we post all the latest developments and information. So yeah, I think following us on, if you follow us on LinkedIn, you'll be kept up to date with all the latest stuff that we're doing. I definitely am. So that's how I keep track. And that's how I'm going to keep track of this new US person when that happens. But Peter, thank you so much for talking to us. And thank you our viewers for tuning into JSA TV and JSA podcasts. And don't forget to check out social media channels for more content. Until next time, happy networking.