• ALL
  • CATEGORIES

Meet the team: Hugh James, Consultant

In a bumper couple of weeks for Manifesto on the recruitment front we’re delighted to welcome snowboarding drummer Hugh James to the team.

Hugh will be working in a multi-faceted role with a focus on growing Manifesto’s WebCenter Sites business. It’s not limited to this though, as Hugh says “being in the minority of employees who have limited technical knowledge, my role almost entirely consists of talking to people and making sure that things get done from an account management point of view. These are fortunately things I like to think I am good at but also, and more importantly, enjoy a great deal!”

Hugh’s previous job was as a Technical Recruitment Consultant at Mortimer Spinks. “They have a very good culture around them and certainly know their stuff. It was a lot of fun and I’ll certainly miss the people but I left on very good terms. In the latter half of my career at Mortimer Spinks my role developed from being a candidate sourcer to having a strong emphasis on growing accounts and bringing in new business. I also helped to build partnerships; one of those in particular involved a lot of work with Manifesto’s own Jim Bowes.”

Hugh actually helped us recruit the majority of our early team. “You could definitely feel a good buzz coming off of the company. From an outside perspective, anyone I ever put in for interview came back with exceptional feedback and I don’t recall a single offer being rejected. The growth of Manifesto was something I was amazed by, so I finally decided I wanted to be a part of it. The rest, as the age old cliché goes, is history.”

With a father who is heavily engrossed in the technology industry and a childhood love for computer games and mobile phones, technology was always going to figure prominently in Hugh’s choice of career. “I cant think of a single industry which is not disrupted in some way by technology, and I love being in the centre of that.”

Outside of work, he’s obsessed by snowboarding: “I am only able to spend 2 weeks a year doing it but it just makes the anticipation greater. I’ve done a season, so I’m pretty good, and one day, I might take a mini 4 month sabbatical to do another (Jim, this OK?).”

He’s also been drummer in the same band for 15 years. Nothing Like The Night have gone through at least 5 different iterations of members, though the core has remained the same and Hugh hopes they’ve finally settled on a long-term line up. “A crazy fact for you: A long time ago, before Manifesto was even formed, and before I had even moved to London, we once supported a band called 6 Nation State in Winchester. Their guitarist was none other than Manifesto’s Richard Hanson – makes you realise what a small world it is we live in.”

A small world indeed and one in which, should you happen to run across him, you should go up and say hello to our Hugh. He is, in his own words, “a very approachable chap.”

Sign up for the Manifesto newsletter and exclusive event invites