About this Event
The staffing and talent solutions sector is entering its next phase of transformation. Automation is accelerating, client expectations are becoming more strategic, and traditional recruitment models are under increasing pressure from AI, procurement scrutiny, and margin compression.
The September Future of Staffing & Talent Solutions Summit will focus on three themes shaping the next generation of market leaders.
- Leadership capability. As transformation becomes continuous, leaders must balance operational efficiency, technology adoption, workforce strategy, risk management, and organisational change simultaneously.
- The growing importance of consulting capability. Clients increasingly expect workforce intelligence, AI advisory, skills insight, and transformation support — not simply hiring delivery.
- Growth by acquisition and consolidation. What do buyers and investors value, how AI is influencing valuations, where acquisition opportunities are emerging, and how firms can scale capability while maintaining culture and performance.
Throughout the day, senior leaders, investors, advisers, and operators will share practical insight into how they are adapting to a market increasingly defined by automation, capability depth, and strategic value creation.
This is a strategic working session for leaders focused on reinvention, growth, and building sustainable advantage in the next era of staffing and talent solutions.
Agenda
- 09:00 - 09:30 Registration, Networking & Coffee
- 09:30 - 09:45 Market Pulse The new realities shaping the second half of 2026. Ken Brotherston - TALiNT Partners.
- 09:45 - 10:15 Economic Overview from Natwest Ross Walker, Chief UK Economist & Stuart Burt, Head of Public Policy Unit - NatWest
- 10:15 - 11:00 CEO Panel Q&A The winners are starting to separate. Which business models are proving most resilient?
- 11:00 - 11:20 Morning Break
- 11:20 - 11:50 From Recruiters to Workforce Consultants What would a company built for the AI era look like? Sam Schlimper, MD Randstad Enterprise
- 11:50 - 12:20 Panel and Q&A What will clients pay more for? The next wave of customer value
- 12:20 - 12:50 Roundtable Discussion - False Dawn or New Hope? Has the market truly 'turned a corner' and what are the key factors influencing clients' behaviour?
- 12:50 - 13:30 Networking Lunch
- 13:30 - 14:00 M&A Keynote Nick Gordon, Founder - Meraki Capital
- 14:00 - 14:45 Closing CEO Debate What will the workforce company of 2030 look like?
- 14:45 - 15:00 Chair's Reflections & Close
- 15:00 - 16:00 Networking Drinks Looking forward to the weekend
Speakers
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Ross Walker NatWest Head of Global Economics & Chief UK EconomistRoss was ranked the #1 UK economic forecaster in The Sunday Times and 2015 and by Reuters in 2016.
He regularly contributes to surveys by the Bank of England, HM Treasury and private polling organisations.
Ross joined NatWest Markets in 1998, and has been in his current position since July 2016.
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Stuart Burt NatWest Head of Public Policy UnitAdvising business leaders on UK and global political opportunities and risks
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Sam Schlimper Randstad Enterprise Managing DirectorI believe work is one of the most powerful forces shaping human lives.For most of my career I have been fascinated by a simple question: why do some organisations create energy, growth and opportunity while others create frustration, waste and unrealised potential?
That question has taken me across talent acquisition, workforce transformation, organisational design, skills, strategy and now the intersection of human and agentic work.
My work is driven by a belief that sustainable performance emerges when organisations intentionally design systems that connect people, technology, governance and work around meaningful outcomes. As AI reshapes how value is created, organisations have an opportunity to move beyond redesigning jobs and begin redesigning work itself. My focus is helping leaders navigate that transition in a way that creates both organisational performance and human flourishing.
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Nick Gordon Meraki Capital Founder & CEONick Gordon is a British entrepreneur and the founder of Meraki Capital, a London-based investment firm specialising in the recruitment sector. With over two years of industry experience, he focuses on acquiring and scaling recruitment agencies through growth capital, operational support, and technology.
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Louise Shaw Omni CEOAt Omni, we help businesses find, attract, and retain the right people to drive long-term success. We believe that Talent Is Everything, and our expertise spans three key areas:
Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) – Acting as an extension of your team, we design flexible, scalable solutions that improve hiring efficiency, enhance your employer brand, and deliver real ROI.
Executive Search – Led by Jo Lancaster Towers, who brings 17 years of experience from AstraZeneca, we take a strategic approach to leadership hiring. Through targeted search, talent pipelining, and succession planning, we help you secure the leaders who will shape your future.
Talent Strategy – From workforce planning and salary benchmarking to employer branding and outplacement, we provide expert insight to help you stay ahead in a competitive market. As a CIPD talent intelligence partner, we deliver data-led solutions that drive real impact.
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Neil Jones Matrix CEOMatrix is a workforce solutions and background screening provider transforming how organisations find, manage and retain talent.
By combining smart technology, expert people and deep market insight, Matrix helps employers across the public and private sectors to manage complex workforces with greater visibility, control and confidence.
At the centre of its offering is Matrix Prism – a total workforce platform that unifies the entire employment lifecycle. From sourcing and screening to project delivery and performance reporting, it gives organisations the intelligence and agility to make faster, data-led decisions.
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Darren Topping HeadFirst Global Head of Market InsightsHeadFirst Global is the leading work orchestrator, built for the intelligence era. Created through the union of HeadFirst Group and Impellam Group – bringing together a technology and data platform with leadership in global managed services and specialist talent communities – we offer a unique, global technology and talent solution with unmatched scale and capability.
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David Rees Harnham and Levin ChairThe Levin Group are leaders in specialist recruitment for the FinTech, HealthTech, and GreenTech sectors, through their portfolio brands Storm2, Storm3 and Storm4.
Established in 2006, Harnham was founded as a specialist recruitment business for the Data & Analytics market. Over the past c.20 years, it has grown into the global leader in Data & Analytics recruitment with nearly 200 consultants, covering permanent and contract vacancies across the UK, Europe, and USA.
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Adam Hawkins LinkedIn Head of Sales, EMEA & LATAM -
Carey Munn Pertemps Managed Solutions Director of Managed SolutionsThe UK’s largest provider of RPO, MSP, On demand, Project RPO and Total Talent recruitment solutions. Through our RPO, Master Vendor, Neutral Vendor, Blended RPO/MSP and Modular service offerings, we help organisations take control of their talent acquisition. We do this by bringing knowledge and best practice gained working with many of the UK’s leading employers to add value to your organisation.
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Gareth McNeill Resourgenix Managing Director, UK&IResourgenix Limited is a UK-based talent solutions company with a global reach. We are known for solving complex workforce challenges and delivering service excellence across sectors.
An experienced, qualified team with an innovative edge, we integrate seamlessly into your operations, co-designing solutions around your business, not the other way around. From permanent hires to flexible contracts, direct sourcing, RPO and MSP solutions, we bring deep expertise backed by partnerships with leading talent technology providers.
Through our offshore back-office support and processing capabilities, we can provide our clients or staffing partners with solutions that are agile, cost-effective, and scalable.
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Sam Dhesi Popp CEOPopp helps forward-thinking staffing and recruitment firms automate candidate workflows, end-to-end. Engineered for companies who build their own tech, Popp is designed to complement – not replace – what you’re building. Our API-first conversation engine embeds into your existing systems, giving your recruiters enterprise-grade AI capabilities without the cost of building and maintaining them in-house. Plug in any of our selected modules – sourcing, stack-ranking, screening, scheduling – or use Popp for any custom conversation-based use case, from candidate outreach to timesheet support. Teams simply run their usual workflows, and Popp’s AI handles the rest, intelligently managing 1000s of candidate conversations in parallel. Around the clock, across multiple channels, in almost any language. That’s why Popp is already trusted by industry leaders like Randstad, Korn Ferry, AMN Healthcare, Robert Walters, Cielo, Page Outsourcing, Pertemps, and many more.
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Daniel Haslam Giant Group Chief Business Development OfficerIncorporated In 1992, Giant Group is a workforce management solutions provider, dedicated to transforming the way businesses manage their global contingent workforce.
We’re proud to offer a scalable end-to-end solution, including vendor management, screening, timesheet, bill and pay as well as a range of global employment options. Our proprietary software combined with our award-winning support services are what sets us apart and everything we do has a focus on the client experience.
We have a proven track record of enhancing operational efficiency and reducing costs for our clients, whilst helping them avoid risk and remain compliant.
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Tim Cincotta Vervoe Director of Sales, APAC & EMEAVervoe is an AI-powered skills intelligence platform that helps organizations uncover skills at scale and identify the people most likely to succeed. Instead of inferring ability from resumes, credentials, or self-reported profiles, Vervoe enables candidates and employees to prove their skills through realistic, job-related tasks. The platform uses AI-powered screening, autograded skills assessments, cognitive assessments, and job simulations to show how people perform real work and advances the strongest candidates with Intelligent Interview Scheduling. That same verified skills evidence extends beyond hiring and across the existing workforce, including AI readiness, turning demonstrated performance into decision-ready intelligence. Learn more at vervoe.com.
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Dina Bay PitchMe Founder & CEOPitchMe is the data intelligence layer for enterprise staffing agencies — the verified foundation that makes every ATS, AI tool, and automation workflow in a recruitment tech stack perform the way it was designed to.
The impact goes beyond cleaner records. PitchMe powers 360-degree intelligence across the full recruitment operation: candidate sourcing from existing databases, submission quality that converts, AI matching that performs, automation that fires on accurate data, and BD pipeline as reliable as the candidate database.
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Alec Fowler Bullhorn Client Director, EnterpriseBullhorn is the world’s leading on-line recruitment and sales platform for the staffing industry. For over 20 years Bullhorn has helped staffing organisations work faster and more efficiently ensuring better decision making, improved productivity and more placements from recruiters.
Bullhorn’s true cloud delivery enables organisations to grow without limits, work anywhere at any time and always be available.
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Scott McKenzie SThree Group Strategy DirectorBringing skilled people together to build the future, SThree is the global STEM workforce consultancy.
We fuse ambition, expertise, and technology to help dynamic organisations drive innovation and solve complex challenges. Since 1986, we’ve been pure-play specialists in STEM, building a global team of 2,700+ consultants across 11 countries who understand the goals of STEM professionals and the organisations that rely on them.
We partner with companies to shape strategy, build expert teams, and deliver end-to-end project solutions through our seven specialist brands.
