Member Article

Former Onyx Group head honcho launches 'disruptive' recruitment business

Neil Stephenson, the South Tyneside entrepreneur who headed up the Onyx Group before its £65m sale last year, has revealed his latest venture that he hopes can shake up the recruitment sector.

Tetrad Recruitment Group is Stephenson’s latest endeavour, a recruitment company that will focus on sales, marketing and technology and, in what could be an industry first, will only employ people who have no experience in the recruitment sector.

The new firm will initially focus on the North East, drawing on Stephenson’s career experience in the three sectors, before looking to scale nationally.

Following the launch of Tetrad, Stephenson said: “Having taken some time out to reflect on and research what the next big thing is for me, I identified a gap in the recruitment market which I aim to fill.

“Onyx was fundamentally a tech business that we scaled and grew very quickly and I believe that the knowledge and experience I gained in growing that operation can be transferred to other business models, such as the one we have in place for Tetrad.”

The launch of his new business comes less than 12 months after Neil sold his first venture the Onyx Group where, as CEO between 2006 and 2016, he grew the business from 25 members of staff to a headcount of 180, and saw revenues swell from £1m to £30 over the decade.

With Tetrad, Stephenson is hoping to achieve revenues of £10m within the next three years and has grand ambitions to grow headcount at the new firm from five to 100 members of staff over the same period.

“Our goal is to be a disruptor in the sector,” he said. “Traditionally, recruitment companies have one team that looks after everything but we believe the way forward is to have two separate teams – an internal team focussed on talent identification and an external sales team working with businesses that need talent.”

Looking to promote your product/service to SME businesses in your region? Find out how Bdaily can help →