TalentEdu was established by Mark Holleran, who along with the rest of the team, has worked within both executive search firms and directly for universities in the UK and overseas. Mark began his career working with investment banks, hedge funds and private equity firms before moving into higher education where he has recruited for universities in the UK, Europe, North America, Australia, Asia and the Middle East. He has also spent 10 years at the University of Warwick as a Director within the Campus and Commercial Services Group, which includes businesses such as jobs.ac.uk, Warwick Arts Centre and Warwick Conference Centres.
Through working with different senior stakeholders across numerous universities came the same message; a different approach to recruitment was needed. The feedback was that executive search was expensive. That many consultants working on the search didn’t really understand higher education and recognise its unique requirements and challenges. That not enough was being done to address the equality, diversity and inclusivity requirements universities have. That there wasn’t much “search” going on, with longlists that didn’t show much creativity and sometimes the suspicion that they were being recycled from other institution’s recent searches.
