SpenglerFox and Cowley Brown Recruitment Join Forces
February 27, 2019 – London-based executive search firm SpenglerFox and Cowley Brown Recruitment, located in Dublin, have formed a strategic alliance aimed at growing and expanding both firms’ search business in Ireland.
SpenglerFox is a leading global retained search and HR services firm, with Irish heritage, across multiple territories serving both the mature and emerging markets. Cowley Brown offers a mix of retained and contingency search business mainly in the Irish healthcare sector and as a consequence, also in the U.K. and Middle East.
The alliance will target the retained executive search business in the Irish market with an initial focus on C-suite roles in life sciences and related sectors, said the firms. The partnership will also create an opportunity for Cowley Brown to engage with SpenglerFox jointly on assignments in other countries around the globe.
Both firms bring added value to their respective domestic and international clients, Cowley Brown having built a considerable local footprint in Ireland and SpenglerFox having a strong international brand as an executive search expert, with a wide international reach for sourcing talent.
Irish Exposure
Ireland has a modern knowledge economy, focusing on services and high-tech industries and dependent on trade, industry and investment. The country’s famous drinks industry employs about 92,000 people and contributes billions to the Irish economy, making it one of its biggest sectors. It supports jobs in agriculture, distilling and brewing. But a growing financial services sector base is also important, employing some 35,000 people and contributing billions in taxes annually to the Irish economy. Ireland is the seventh largest provider of wholesale financial services in Europe.
Since its management buyout in 2017 Spengler Fox has been focusing on increasing its specialized expert industry knowledge as well as expanding its geographical reach, with Ireland being a priority market.
“We are delighted to form this new alliance with Ken Cowley and his team at Cowley Brown,” said Jens Friedrich, CEO of SpenglerFox. “Such an alliance will give SpenglerFox the executive search exposure in the ever improving Irish market, while also continuing to strengthen our life sciences practice and serving our international clients who are expanding into the Irish economy.‘’
Mr. Cowley, director of Cowley Brown, said he was excited about the partnership. “We feel this was the perfect time for us to strike this arrangement with the team at SpenglerFox due to the continuing growth in the Irish economy and our own growth over the last 12 to 18 months,” he said. “We have seen an ever increasing demand from our clients for assistance in helping to fill key C-suite roles, so we are very much looking forward to the prospect of tapping in to the resourcing strength, market-specific expertise and the global reach that our new business colleagues at SpenglerFox will provide.”
Significant Opportunities
“Also, we feel that the values of our two organizations are highly aligned, with a massive level of enthusiasm for finding top talent and for putting our clients at the center of everything we do,’’ said Mr. Cowley.
Both companies believe that there continues to be significant opportunities in the Irish market, as both foreign direct investment (FDI) and indigenous Irish companies continue to expand, said the firms. “The combined set of strengths of both teams, as well as the level and quality of existing contacts and candidate-reach, means that ambitious targets are being set by the new strategic alliance, and both companies are very much looking forward to an exciting future, collaborating on multiple assignments together, both in Ireland and internationally in the best interest of our respective clients,” said the firms.
Founded in 2003, SpenglerFox also provides interim management, payrolling and recruitment process outsourcing in both mature and emerging markets. The firm also has a dedicated focus on board work for small to mid-sized companies and a research team that provides talent mapping and pipelining solutions.
Cowley Brown Recruitment, established in 2017, offers recruitment and talent solutions to a range of Irish and international clients. Its biggest sector is healthcare, but the firm also has significant cross-sector experience including recruitment at the executive search end of the market, as well as higher-volume recruitment. The firm also offers a range of additional consultancy and compliance services, including HR, health and safety, and training.
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor; and Andrew W. Mitchell, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media