James Reed (entrepreneur)

James Reed is the chairman of the Reed group of companies.

James A. Reed MA MBA FCIPD FRSA (born on 12th April 1963 in Woking, Surrey) is the Chairman of the Reed Global group of companies, which comprises Reed Specialist Recruitment, Reed Online recruitment, Reed in Partnership and Reed Learning.

Early Life

James graduated from Oxford in 1984 with a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) and subsequently gained an MBA from the Harvard Business School.

James enjoyed a varied early career, which included being assistant to Gordon Roddick, the Chairman of the Body Shop plc, and working as a media planner/buyer for Saatchi and Saatchi plc.

In 1987/1988, he worked for Afghanaid and Help the Aged, coordinating relief and development programmes in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Soviet-occupied Afghanistan.

James also spent more than three years with the BBC, where he worked as an Assistant Producer on documentaries and factual programmes.

Career at Reed

In 1994 James joined Reed, the recruitment specialist, that was founded by his father, Alec, in 1960.

The company has grown significantly over the last 49 years and now spans Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. Reed employs 4,000 people in 400 offices worldwide, and delivers a recruitment services across more than 30 specialisms.

James is a member of the UK Government's National Employment Partnership, which was set up in January 2009 to identify what more can be done to collectively help people and businesses cope with the downturn in the economy, and ensure they are well placed for the upturn.

He also initiated the Keep Britain Working campaign, which aims to gather as many good ideas as possible about how to Keep Britain Working from people all over the country. These ideas are rated and circulated on keepbritainworking.com.

James is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) and was formerly an Associate of the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit and a member of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)'s business-led Taskforce on Race Equality and Diversity in the Private Sector.

Speeches

He has spoken at numerous conferences and seminars, and has twice been the keynote speaker at the CIPD’s annual recruitment conference. James also spoke at the Smith Institute’s launch of “Starting Them Young – Creating a Culture of Enterprise for All” at Number 11 Downing Street. He spoke on the subject of building a resilient workforce at an event hosted by the Smith Institute at the British Academy in April 2009.

reed.co.uk is the largest job site in Europe and because of this, James was invited to speak about how the Internet has transformed recruitment at the 6th Annual London Connects Conference in June 2006. Continuing on this theme, James speaks regularly about Innovation in Recruitment and Retention, The Transformational Power of the Internet and Building a Resilient Workforce to a variety of audiences.

Personal Life

He is married to Nicola and they live in London with their six children. James enjoys running, horse riding, football and mountaineering, and has participated in two of Reed’s annual Alpine Leadership Challenges - led by the renowned Alpinist Stefan Gatt.

External links

• http://www.reed.co.uk • http://www.reedglobal.com • http://www.reedlearning.com • http://www.reedinpartnership.co.uk • http://www.joboafrica.com • http://www.keepbritainworking.com • http://www.ethiopiaid.org.uk • http://www.thebiggive.org.uk