Aboutus

We invest in great recruiters, recruitment companies, and staffing service organisations.

Who we are

We provide so much more than investment. From our support division offering payroll and a range of funding options, to our investment division creating new recruitment brands and scaling established companies, or our balanced portfolio of recruitment & staffing service companies; the Bluestones Group is focused on all things recruitment.

All Things Recruitment

Bluestones Group is singularly focused on All Things Recruitment. It runs through everything we do, whether that’s managing our core recruitment portfolio, to identifying individual recruiters and recruitment businesses to invest in through our investment division, or supporting external recruitment companies with our support division’s payroll, funding, marketing and IT services. 

We want to be the first choice investor in our chosen sectors, with a clear vision, well-structured and balanced portfolio, and a compelling narrative that everyone can buy into.

Our vision

We create opportunities and wealth for our people as we invest in, grow and support our balanced portfolio of recruitment and staffing service businesses, and continue our journey to becoming a £1bn revenue business.

Our strategy

We have a clear, unambiguous strategy that focuses on three core elements: Acquisition. Investment. Organic Growth.

Everything we do is in support of, or aligned with, one or more of these elements. This means taking action and making decisions that support our vision, by engaging in strategically aligned activities in our chosen sectors, but also at the same time not being distracted by undertakings that fall outside of this remit.

From a standing start in 2014, the Group has grown to be a multi-million pound revenue business, with offices throughout the UK and a balanced portfolio of staffing brands.

Our divisions

We have three core divisions:

Recruitment, Investment and Support.

Our sectors

Within our Recruitment Division we have five core sectors within which our portfolio of brands exist.
This balanced approach ensures we have a breadth of coverage across a diverse range of industry sectors, whilst nurturing a depth of talent within each of the divisional sectors.

Our brands

We have invested in and supported a broad and balanced portfolio of brands that predominantly operate within the recruitment and staffing sector.

This approach ensures a balanced risk approach through any sector or market-specific uncertainty and provides a degree of downside resiliency.

Perhaps more importantly however, it allows the Group to capitalise on multiple opportunities simultaneously across the divisional sectors in which we operate.

Our brands have individual identities, yet they collaborate within and between divisions, and are united by our shared vision. They all aspire to be leaders in their chosen sectors.

Our values

Having clear company values helps ensure that everyone in the Group is working towards the same goals. Our values help support our vision and shape our culture.

As a Group, our core company values influences everything we do; from employee behaviour to encouraging a customer-centric focus.

We have a clear plan, a collective vision and a compelling growth narrative.
It's an exciting time to be in the Bluestones Group.

Our history

To understand our history, it's necessary to first explain our business model.

At Bluestones we believe it's important that our people believe in our vision and feel personally invested in what we do. This shared ownership approach is underwritten by our joint venture model, whereby brand directors have an equity stake in their businesses.

Our approach is unique in that we typically provide 100% funding for new joint ventures that provide a compelling business case and are strategically aligned with our goals and core divisions.

Our people

Clearly our brands will only ever be as good as the people within them.

It's why we value our people and recognise the importance of investing in them, ensuring we give them the support they need and the opportunities they want.

We therefore constantly seek to attract and retain the right talent for the Group; people that respect our values and are committed to achieving our shared vision.

See our senior leadership team HERE

Our senior leadership team

Steve Pendergast

Steve Pendergast

Group CEO
Steve is a committed entrepreneur that has built and developed numerous businesses over the last two decades. As CEO of the Bluestones Group, Steve identifies new business opportunities, potential joint ventures and provides the guidance and organisational vision for the Group.
Tim Trotter Bluestones Group chairman

Tim Trotter

Chairman
Tim joined Bluestones as its chairman on 1st August 2022, as a successful entrepreneur with over thirty years’ experience in business and support services, financial services and media. He currently has a wide variety of international interests which include both public and private companies.
Duncan Gregson

Duncan Gregson

Non-exec director
Duncan is a non-exec director at Bluestones, having been Group CEO at Air Energi from 2008 through 2015. With extensive experience of global recruitment, international workforce solutions and consulting across a range of international and SME organisations, Duncan's primary focus is on financial governance at Bluestones.
Trish Stratford

Trish Stratford

Divisional CEO
Trish has worked across a broad range of sectors within the recruitment industry and is now CEO of the Professional, Healthcare and Generalist sectors within the Bluestones Group's recruitment division.
Paul Broderick

Paul Broderick

Divisional CEO
Paul is the CEO of the Technical and Education sectors within the Bluestones Group's recruitment division. He has over 20 years’ experience across the full recruitment company life-cycle.
Alex Grant

Alex Grant

Divisional CEO
Alex is the CEO of the support division at Bluestones Group, bringing extensive experience of payroll, funding, finance and compliance across a broad range of recruitment and staffing businesses.
Matt Cody

Matt Cody

Investment CEO / Marketing Director
Matt has over 20 years' recruitment industry experience, has worked for AIM and FTSE-listed organisations, has an MBA and a first degree in Retail Marketing. As well as being the Group Marketing Director, Matt oversees the investment division and fast tracks new joint ventures into the Group.
Lynda Kenyon

Lynda Bearman

Shared Services Director
Lynda has worked in the recruitment industry for over 25 years, now focusing on change management, process alignment & central shared services at Bluestones Group.
Stuart Gosling

Stuart Gosling

Finance Director
Stuart joined the Group following roles in a variety of businesses, including accountancy practices, SMEs and a multinational NYSE listed company.

Want to launch your own agency?

If you are looking for investment to launch your own recruitment agency or scale your existing company, find out more about what we offer in terms of investment and support via our investment division.

Our values

PACE logo

The Bluestones Group core values are summed up with the acronym PACE. We work at pace. We grow at pace. And collectively, the attributes of PACE means we’re greater than the sum of our constituent parts.

Passion

We’re passionate about the role we play in helping launch new recruitment businesses, in investing in established recruitment businesses and in staffing service companies. We hope our passion shines through in our everyday interactions both within the business and with our external stakeholders.

Accountability

We empower our teams so that they have accountability, owning their respective processes, parts of the business and brands, and knowing that they can make decisions and have leadership support and backing in their day to day roles.

Collaboration

The nature of the Bluestones Group with its shared support services and infrastructure, shared aspirations and goals, and shared vision for the Group means we all work well together. We’re collaborative in our approach, consultative and rely on the subject matter expertise that our broad network of specialists share.

Enjoyment

And while working in this way, with our shared goals and aspirations, we want to know our employees are happy in their work; that we provide a great working environment, with real opportunities and a balanced environment where everyone’s voice can be heard. We want to see that enjoyment and know that we’ve created and are building a growing business where our teams want to work.