Headquartered in Newcastle' and with additional offices in London' Bristol' Dallas' Chicago and Boston Samuel Knight International (SKI) has become one of the leading names in energy and rail recruitment sector supplying direct hires and full project manpower solutions
At the helm is CEO Steven Rawlingson’ who founded the business in 2014 after identifying a gap in the market for project manpower and consultancy services within the energy and rail industries.
After securing seed-stage support’ SKI faced serious scaleup challenges in its third year when it saw exponential growth. Revenues increased 400% to hit £10m but back at the office’ support functions needed to be strengthened.
Steven said’ “It looked like we were going to be a ‘could have been special’ business. I had grown it too quickly and was in a bit of a pickle.”
To learn more about sustainable growth’ Steven joined the Scale-up Leader’s Academy’ delivered by the Entrepreneurs’ Forum.
“As a member of the Forum’ we knew we’d be surrounded by similar minded people’ but it’s been a breath of fresh air to work on our challenges with other entrepreneurs.
“The Scale-up Leaders’ Academy allowed me to reassess and learn how to keep the four key plates of my business – people’ strategy’ execution’ cash – spinning in the right way.”
Starting with an intimate team of four’ in just six years’ SKI has grown into a 70-person team’ with an estimated turnover of £22m year end of 2020 – firmly moving towards their goal of achieving £100m turnover.
The company’s impressive growth is testimony to its unrivalled services’ its people and the innovative solutions the company provides to its clients.
By utilising the latest technology and online resources’ SKI uncover the most sought-after talent’ allowing them to stay at the forefront of the recruitment industry’ and deliver the very best candidates with speed and utmost attention to detail.
In 2019, SKI secured further investment to finance the next phase of growth and celebrated the launch of SKI in Boston and Chicago.
And despite the pandemic’ both the UK and USA branches grew by 90% – 100%’ with the company being on track to achieve £30 million in sales.
Their continued success and determination for further growth led Steven to the finals of the 2021 North East Entrepreneurial Awards where he won the Scale-up Entrepreneur award.
For Steven’ the lessons learned throughout the Scale-up Leader’s Academy have been instrumental in his success so far’ and in the firm’s future ambitions.
“It really changed my mindset and helped me get the business back in line. I learned to think like a CEO. I can’t tell you what it did for me.”
Delivered by the Entrepreneurs’ Forum’ the Scale-up Leader’s Academy is a six month programme of dedicated support that will help you prepare to grow your company faster and more sustainably.
