Gay Haines

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For 13 years I had the privilege of working in some of the best agencies in London - Y&R, CDP and JWT. In 1993, in need of a change, I bought out the founding partners of Kendall Tarrant. My ambition from day one was to try to take the business of headhunting onto a different plane. Even then I was quite grown up and had worked at the most senior level at both JWT and CDP so I was in a position to help and advise senior people in the industry. I took the view very early on that I would only represent people I liked, I trusted and I respected - recognising that  any future reputation would be built on the back of the quality of the people I looked after. I know to this day that you have to assume you are only as good as the way you executed your last brief - and that exceptional service is absolutely paramount. With a great team in place, Kendall Tarrant grew quickly and in 1996 I decided to float the company on the stock market in order to raise the money to build a global business that could partner agencies around the world.

Over the next few years we opened offices in New York, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Australia (and closed it again rather quickly) and South America and Kendall Tarrant became the pre-eminent headhunting firm in the communications sector. In 2006, having tired of running a public company - a job I did not love and did not do quite as well as I would have liked - I took the very difficult decision to leave to set up a different kind of offering. An offering that concentrated only on senior briefs and candidates around the world. Grace Blue was born in March 2007 and was blessed from day one with the support of many of the most talented and respected practitioners in the industry - both as clients and candidates. Support that I shall always value. As Somerset Maugham said 'It wasn't until quite late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say I don't know'. Not having to have all the answers all the time has been quite liberating.