Our Consultants

Amanda Fone

FIRP Founder & CEO

With four  decades  in recruitment and search for the Marketing & PR /Communications & Sports Marketing sectors Amanda still works at the coalface placing Director & CEO level candidates in senior industry roles. She has helped many marketing, comms and sponsorship teams access diverse talent at all levels. An irrepressible interest in helping your career and your business and a fierce advocate of the individual. Champion of inclusion, diversity and social mobility. Amanda is co-founder of the NoTurningBack2020 programme No Turning Back 2020 | Who We Are which launched in June 2016 with a mission to increase the representation of black, Asian, minority ethnic communities to 20% and to retain this 20% in the Marketing and Communications sector until they reach the very top roles. Joint founder of the f1 Back2Businessship programme for returning to work parents & a contributor to  House of Commons Select Committees on the Gender Pay Gap & Flexible Working policy reviews. Mentor, trainer, coach and determined for everyone to get the best out of their career whatever their level and background. One of the best connected recruiters in London. Fellow of the Institute of Recruitment Professionals and an advocate of driving the agenda for recruitment to be seen as a highly professional and aspirational career path. Amanda has been a Trustee of the National Youth Ballet of Great Britain since 1993.

amanda@f1recruitment.com

Sally Wells

Non Executive Director

Sally has enjoyed a varied and exciting career both as an entrepreneur and in a more corporate setting. She has managed hundreds of people and been CEO/MD of businesses in a variety of different sectors including logistics, education, recruitment, psychometric profiling and publishing. Over the last 12 years she improved the profitability of an international recruitment company by 500%. She then sold her share in the company to explore a new start up in education – subsequently sold to a psychometric profiling organisation.

Her experience includes mergers, strategic planning, people development – creating effective senior leadership teams, start-ups, business planning, and equity sales.

Sally joined Vistage in April 2015 and chairs London based groups of business leaders. The Groups consist of MDs and Business Owners of all types of companies, with a turnover typically in excess of £3 million. She has recently taken on the role of Best Practice Chair, helping other Chairs reach their potential.

She is also a Coach, Non-Exec Director and adviser to a huge range of clients throughout the UK. She joined  f1 recruitment & search as a Non Executive Director in April 2021.

 

Nick Davies

Sector Lead PR & Influencer/Corporate Communications & Sports PR

Through his love of sport and playing cricket at a high level, Nick embarked on a new career within the recruitment industry in 2016. With the skills and experience learned  from  his sports career –  high quality performance, attention to detail and resilience, Nick transferred these skills into the talent sector.
5 years on Nick is part of the leadership team at  f1 working across PR, Corporate Communications and Sports Communications assignments at the mid to senior level.  Nick has been an active advocate of NoTurningBack2020  and the f1 diversity and inclusion programmes. Candidates at all levels should contact him for insight into the market as well as hearing about new opportunities.

Nick@f1recruitment.com

 

Gary Allen

Lead Marketing, Digital, Sports Digital

With over 25 years’ experience in recruitment and sales, Gary’s breadth and depth of sector knowledge in Marketing, Digital, eCommerce & Tech, has proven invaluable for the international franchise partners of leading brands including M&S, H&M, Harvey Nichols & Starbucks as well as global technology players like Dell EMC.

Having placed specialist and executive talent in the UK, Europe and Emerging Markets, Gary has developed a unique understanding of the positive effect on culture and performance that diversity can have on a business.

Gary is the Sector Lead for Marketing, MarTech and Digital helping f1 Recruitment clients to build diverse, high performing teams that enable change and transformation. His passion for driving excellence in candidate and client experiences ensures a constant focus on delivering the highest quality recruitment outcomes.

 

gary@f1recruitment.com

Adomaa Mansoh

Senior Operations Manager

A travel enthusiast with 5 years experience working within sales and marketing for international companies. Adomaa transitioned into operations to capitalise on her passion to embrace challenges and problem solving. Her skills in developing processes and driving efficiency have been put to good use since joining f1

adomaa@f1recruitment.com

Sarah Bishop

Social Change Programme Lead – NTB2020 & Back2businessship

With a Business degree from Manchester Metropolitan University, Sarah has over 20 years of Marketing expertise. She is an experienced b2b and b2c marketer and has marketing experience across a broad range of industries, including financial services, education and telecoms. Sarah has worked both client side and for direct marketing agencies where she managed clients such as Tesco and L’Oreal. Her most recent role was Brand manager for Zurich Insurance.

Sarah stepped back from marketing to support her family whilst recently working as a special needs assistant at a local Nursery, she has taken up the challenge of a portfolio career and has joined f1 recruitment as a part-time returner to the business world.

She will combine her marketing, project management and administration skills to support f1’s No Turning Back (NTB) programme as Outreach Development Consultant. Sarah is an active advocate of BAME 2020 and has been placed as a dedicated resource to support the newly launched NTB Ambassador programme.

noturningback2020outreach@f1recruitment.com

James Ingham

Associate – Sports Partnerships, Sponsorships & Marketing, Comms

James has over 8 years’ experience within the recruitment and sales world with a primary focus on the sports industry throughout his career. Graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2012 with a BSc in Sports & Exercise Science James has always had a keen interest in the industry. James sits on the Sports team at f1 focusing on PR, Commercial and Marketing opportunities.

 

james@f1recruitment.com

Declan Wood

Associate – Comms, Influencer & Brand

Declan has a background in both recruitment and sales, leading the Contract & Freelance desk at f1 Recruitment. Graduating with a degree in French and Spanish, Declan has developed a career within recruitment – specialising on contract hires across all levels within PR and Communications, whether supporting agencies’ freelance needs of a couple weeks to long term maternity covers and fixed term contracts.

 

With a keen passion for travel and a huge sports fan; whether it be playing/watching football, cricket, NFL, or Formula 1, Declan brings the same enthusiasm to support his clients and candidates.

declan@f1recruitment.com

Isabella Ajilore

Candidate Research & Junior Associate

Isabella has up to 2 years experience of both in-house and agency recruitment operations, and wants to extend her knowledge by joining f1 recruitment who deals with a wider range of sectors.

Graduated from university with a degree in Accounting and Finance which led to her experience working within a financial services recruitment agency. She has always been passionate about helping professionals find what is best for them by understanding the journey that got them to where they are. Isabella is keen on music and gaining knowledge of different cultures.

 

isabella@f1recruitment.com

Julia Ottaway

Finance & B-Corp lead

Julia has worked in Finance since leaving school having trained with British Airways. Following a career in the travel industry and the family building business, Julia has been with f1 for many years, working on the Accounts & Finance side. Outside of work, Julia has a keen interest in Architecture and Interior Design and has recently finished a course of study in this.

Fran Chandler

Marketing, Content & Admin support

Graduating in Textiles from Nottingham Trent University, Fran worked for Coats Viyella as a Production Manager before moving into  Quality Assurance. She took a career break to raise her children and they moved many times over this period including a few years South East Asia, they eventually settled  in Spain in 2006 where she set up a property management business.

Her background in systems and organisational skills have been put to good use since joining f1 in 2019 in a flexible role working on the Back2Businessship programme and No Turning Back 2020 involved in project co-ordination, content and administration.

frances@f1recruitment.com

Liz Nottingham

FIPA, Co-Founder Back2businessship and Founder of Human Leadership Studio

Liz is the Co-Founder of Back2businessship with Amanda Fone at f1 and they have worked for nearly 9 nears together supporting returning parents to the workplace after an extended career break.  Last year they had their first cohort of the Government Returners Fund 2019 and they achieve a  high placement success rate and permanent employment.

Liz combines her extensive experience of business, people and creativity and collaborates with individuals, teams and leaders to actively support them with change at this time of great shift and uncertainty.She is committed to the development of the leaders of tomorrow and is bold and pioneering in her approach to talent, shaping culture and engagement.
As both a board director and member of senior leader teams, she has supported and collaborated with CEOs and senior management teams to create and implement a pragmatic, impactful and highly business focussed people strategy. He has led and managed transformation and organisational change in a variety of environments. She is recognised as a strong relationship manager with a track record of creating impactful stakeholder relationships at all levels.

Liz Nottingham on LinkedIn

Adrian Walcott

f1 Advisor, Co Founder BAME2020, Founder & MD Brands With Values

Along with Amanda Fone, Adrian Walcott is Co- Founder of BAME2020 and Founder & MD of Brands with Values.

Adrian has worked with Amanda and the f1 team for over 4 years in an advisory role on how to encourage more people from diverse ethnic backgrounds into marketing, PR, communications and sports marketing sectors.

Adrian is the managing director of Brands with Values whose  Culture Decoder specialises in using Culture Diagnostics, in order to drive sales and commercial capability development.

Brands With Values