Expert Perspectives With Augusta Aiken

The Conversation:
Want To Build A Global Recruitment Business?

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

Let me start things off by asking you about the mission. What is it you're trying to do with your business?

Augusta Aiken:

My company, AAA Global, is a global recruitment firm specialising in quantitative and discretionary finance.

We're an incredibly niche firm that specialises in finding talent for all the major hedge funds, banks, and prop firms.

But the mission for me is much bigger than that.

The first mission is to make a positive impact within the recruitment industry, which has a poor reputation, by focusing on building long-term relationships and delivering high-quality work and business solutions.

The second mission is to have an impact on changing the workforce, promoting diversity and inclusion, to enable people to have a promising career in this sector.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

Am I right in thinking, tell me if I'm wrong, Am I right in thinking that that sector traditionally has probably been dominated by men? Is that probably the case if you're trying to change that?

Augusta Aiken:

Yes, it's definitely still very much dominated by men.

When I entered the recruitment industry, it was all men. That has changed significantly in the last few years. Specifically, in the sector we focus on.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

Tell me about the moment when you realised this could be a global business. How did that happen?

Augusta Aiken:

I started the business seven years ago in London, and from the outset, much of our work was international.

And London is changing as a city.

Additionally, there are lots of other financial hubs around the world.

So, since talent is moving globally and our clients are hiring globally, we should have people on the ground in locations where they're hiring. 

This is because we want to emphasise the importance of actual relationships, and a lot of relationship building is done in person.

We now have people on the ground in five countries, with six more countries opening soon.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

So, you're essentially saying it was born global.

When you realised that was where you were going, what's the big problem that you thought you'd have to overcome to get there?

Was it about raising money? Finding premises?

Augusta Aiken:

Fortunately, for us, it wasn't about raising money.

We've always been organically growing, but I think for us to expand globally, it was about finding the right talent on the ground to recreate the same vision we had in London in these other countries, while maintaining our brand value and the way we do things.

Of course, when you open up to different countries, sometimes the service quality and other aspects can deteriorate.

So, we wanted to ensure that we maintained exactly what we were doing in London in these other countries.

And for us, the main thing was then hiring the right people, those with the correct values and the right ambition.

And that was the first, that was the major challenge, especially when you're interviewing in countries which, you know, English isn't necessarily their first language, and just getting the right, right people who are going to be loyal to the brand.

And it's very easy to say, hire the right people.

If it were, we'd all do that, wouldn't we?

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

How did you do that? 

I know recruiting people is what you're familiar with, but could you give us a sense of how you might approach it?

Augusta Aiken:

I think for us, when we look at people, we're fortunate.

We speak to hundreds of people, but we don't necessarily look for a specific skill set because we're happy to train a variety of skills.

We look for characteristics and people.

So there are a few things that we look for.

We look for curious people.

So, people who genuinely want to self-learn, are truly curious about the space, and want to become the best.

We look for people who are resilient because it's not an easy industry.

You have to be able to withstand a lot of rejection and keep moving forward.

And then we look for honest people.

So, we look for people who are fundamentally going to do the right thing, even if it means not getting a deal done. We look for people who are going to do the right thing time and time again.

So it's a few characteristic traits, and then you can develop questions around those things to really find people that share those traits.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

It sounds like quite a challenge to find the right people. Has that been difficult to do?

Augusta Aiken:

It isn't easy.

Talent is the hardest thing for any company today, because most companies are trying to compete for the top 1% of talent.

And it's all in an interview.

Anyone can tell you anything.

And it's about working out who's being honest and reading between the lines and getting to the crux of what that person actually stands for.

So for us, it's always the hardest thing.

I spend a tremendous amount of time in our company's hiring process because the business is built on our people.

It's that simple.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

You're successful now.

But was there ever a moment when it might not have turned out quite as successfully as it has?

Have you had moments when you thought, 'If I don't sort this out, I'm going to have a huge problem?'

Augusta Aiken:

The journey of an entrepreneur is always stressful and hard.

And the bigger you get and the more successful you get, the harder it gets.

It doesn't get easier because the scale of the problem becomes bigger.

When I first started, you know, I started the business organically.

So first year, year and a half, two years just was, you know, you learn, you learn the phrase cash is king, right?

You have to learn to bootstrap and get things moving quickly.

And there's a fantastic phrase that Ken Gryphon always says, which is that someone's got to sell, or none of us are going to eat.

And that's the key thing in the first couple of years: getting things moving and done.

Like, your website doesn't have to be perfect, but you have to start making money.

And the first couple of years were filled with things I questioned about myself.

I went from having a very well-paying job to starting AAA Global.

And all founders always question their decision to start in the beginning.

In year three, it started to be like, 'OK, this is why I did this.'

And now we're nearly seven years in.

There are always problems and challenges, but that's what keeps it exciting, right?

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

I totally agree with you about that.

Let me ask you a question about making mistakes at the beginning and learning from them. 

Were there any decisions that you made early on that have now made your life harder down the track?

Have you had any of those kinds of experiences?

Augusta Aiken:

Fortunately, I don't have any problems now that I created for myself at the start, but that's because we've solved them as they arose.

So I think that, when you first start, the first two or three people you hire are really, really important to the business.

Unfortunately, the first two to three people I hired are no longer with us, which was a mistake.

Later on, we established an incredibly competitive commission structure for our consultants at the time, which was probably too generous because we were adamant that we wanted to be the best-paying in the industry.

We've ended up altering the structure slightly to make it more sensible and feasible for everyone as we grow, while still maintaining one of the best-paying commission structures in the industry, if not the best.

But we've got over that hurdle now.

So, yeah, these are probably a couple of things that we overcame.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

Let me ask you about being the CEO. Because it's a critical job in any business like this.

You're the person who drives the whole shebang in the right direction.

What's your take on the job?

Augusta Aiken:

I personally believe that the three most important aspects of a CEO's role are vision, people, and finances.

So, you've got to be able to eat, sleep, and breathe your vision, and you've got to be able to sell your vision.

You've got to get people behind you and really live your vision as well.

You've also got to be what you say the company is.

So, the vision is critical, and that, in turn, leads to people, because top talent will work only with you if they believe in a shared vision.

So vision is number one, then bringing in the right people into the organisation is number two.

It's just as important, but that's the second most important thing.

And I think that many CEOs, when their businesses become really large, often step back and let others handle it.

However, I think that's often when problems arise. Even some of the most successful businesses in the world have their CEOs conduct one-on-one interviews with the key people who are bringing in revenue, because it's vital.

And then three is money.

You always have to stay grounded and understand what's going on from the bottom to the top, because cash is king.

You've got to be able to know what's going on.

So I think those are the three most important things that the role of a CEO is centred around. 

It's an incredibly difficult role.

You've got to learn to say no.

People are always pulling you in multiple directions and being drawn into countless things.

It's about learning to not make every decision; instead, delegate and assign to yourself the critical decisions, because otherwise, you essentially get burned out from making too many choices.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

There's a bit of a debate about whether you spend most of your time working in the business or whether you spend time working on the business.

It's a somewhat cliché debate, but what's your take on it?

How do you ensure that you have space to step back and think about where the business is going, rather than just being involved in completing all the tasks that need to be done every day?

Augusta Aiken:

I think that's a really important point.

You can fall into the trap of being an operator, where you're on a hamster wheel that you can't get off. You can never really grow successfully if you're in that position. 

About a year ago, I fell into that trap during a period of significant growth.

What I've done since then is add these two things.

The first thing is called 'buy back your time,' where you essentially work out how much your time is worth. Then, you delegate anything that is not of that value to other people who can do it.

The second thing is actually doing a really in-depth time analysis, looking over 2 weeks of where your time goes, and you realise where you're wasting a lot of time.

Another thing I do, which really helps me, is on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Every Wednesday and Friday, I make sure I have no meetings at all.

So Wednesdays and Fridays are blocked.

No one can schedule a call in my diary on Wednesday and Friday.

And obviously, there are exceptions, such as vital or urgent meetings or when a client is in town. In those cases, I'll go.

However, Wednesday and Friday are usually relatively empty.

And the reason I built in time into those two days is so that I can sit on a problem for like 4 hours.

I can turn my phone off and actually focus on work for the company.

This means that on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, I'm quite operational and in-depth in the team.

Then Wednesdays and Fridays, I focus on vision, strategy, and building.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

I want to revisit something you mentioned earlier. One of the things you need to learn is to say no.

Part of the reason you have to say no is so that you don't get tangled up in lots of other stuff.

But there's another aspect to that, which is about what you've just been talking about, which is how you sort out what the right strategy is.

And strategy is mainly about what you don't do.

It's about working out, I'm not going to do this and I'm not going to do that, but I am going to do these things.

How do you cut through the noise if you want to ensure that your business is focused on precisely the right things and you're not doing all the other billion things that you could be doing?

How do you work out that process?

Augusta Aiken:

I think that is about, as you said, it's learning to say no, and it's about working out, OK, what is the impact of this, this change or this direction?

How significant is that impact, and is that impact worth it?

Is a change worth it?

And there's a massive power in getting really focused on what your company does.

We are trying to do everything like the way we recruit in the quant and discretion spaces.

We could recruit across the entire finance sector, but then we wouldn't outdo the firms of other countries in that business.

You can become the best if you really focus.

And many business owners and CEOs often start with a product or a service, and it's very easy to continuously add on, add on, add on, add on, add on when you've got money.

But in my opinion, the best thing is to ask, 'How do we get 1% better?'

How can we improve by 1% instead of just adding more things to our to-do list, because that often provides far more significant results at scale.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

So what you're saying is do less but do it better?

Augusta Aiken:

Definitely, do less but do it better.

Cut constantly, cull until you only do one thing, but do it the best, and then dominate that market. 

Market that product and market it again.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

In terms of that experience you've just described, there are potentially lots of difficult decisions that you've had to make.

Has anything got you out of your comfort zone on that journey?

Augusta Aiken:

At times on this journey, I found it hard to say no. 

In this line of work, I'm fortunate to have hundreds of people who reach out to me frequently, wanting to meet. I had a strong urge to say yes to every opportunity, just like I would when I was a top-level recruiter before starting this business.

So I had to learn to say, I'm really sorry, I don't have the time and to pass things on to somebody else who's also capable.

I've also learnt to say no to new business lines we could pursue, which I know we could be successful in, and instead focus on and improve what we do. 

Ultimately, it's about learning to delegate. Including tasks that you're better at than others, because you've practised them millions of times, when, actually, you still shouldn't be doing them. 

So you're then doing the difficult things because the easy stuff, other people can pick up and support you on. 

That leads to you getting used to being out of your comfort zone. Initially, only a little at a time, then all the time.

It's important because growth is painful.

If you're in your comfort zone, you're likely not growing, both as an individual and as a business.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

Then there's the flip side to this: have there ever been times when you wished you'd been even bolder?

Augusta Aiken:

You can always do more. You can always be bolder.

However, I'm also glad that when I look back, I'm glad I had both strong and steady growth, because I would rather still be in the game and get to where I want to be, rather than take too bold a step and risk it all. 

When you take the biggest risks, you can either go to the skies or you can plummet to zero.

Upon reflection, I could've been bolder in my hiring decisions in the past, but I'm pretty selective.

I'm sure I've missed some people because of that.

I'm sure that we could've grown some of our offices faster.

It could also not have worked, and I was very grateful that, in COVID times, we had a relatively lean team. So, I didn't have to furlough anyone. We just continued.

In fact, we actually grew during that time when many of our competitors and larger firms were struggling because they had grown too fast.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

Absolutely.

You just touched on the concept of teams. Let's explore that.

You have a large number of people in various locations, and we've already discussed the recruitment aspect.

So what I'm asking is, how would you build an effective team? How do you get that bit right?

How do you get people working around shared values and focused on the right things, especially when they are based all around the world? 

Augusta Aiken:

Building a successful team, one that works well together, is a few-fold.

First, it's essential to have a value system.

You must ensure that people share common values, a common direction, and a shared vision.

Then it's about having the correct structure in place. So, reviewing things like having the best manager for specific teams as a high performer isn't necessarily the best suited.

When it comes to management, it's often someone who has the time, the inclination, and the desire to lead a team. Therefore, your highest sales performer might not be the best pick. 

Often, it's better to leave the really big performers to do what they do best and to let people who actually want to manage, manage.

Many companies face this issue. They promote people who are successful, but the successful don't always want to manage. Sometimes they're better off and happier being successful in what they do.

Culture is really key. It means not hiring someone toxic or somebody bad for the culture, even if they're great in terms of performance. I also believe in the phrase 'hire fast and fire faster' in the sense that, if you hire someone who you can see is not a good fit for the culture, they need to go straight away.

It doesn't matter if they're good, because if you don't maintain your culture, you lose everyone.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

I agree with that philosophy as well, but how do you do that remotely?

How do you keep track of the various cultures in multiple locations? 

How do you manage people remotely so that those things happen in the right way?

I would have thought it's hard to do.

Augusta Aiken:

I travel a lot, so I visit my teams. Still, I think that having somebody in that country who's the head of the country who you really trust and you know really believes in the business, because then they report in, they make a difference independently, and they maintain what you're wanting to maintain.

So that's really important.

I also like to check in with everyone in the company.

So I schedule 10-15 minute chats with every single person in the company a couple of times a year or once a quarter.

How often depends on the person's level, but I get to the bottom, because I want to know what's going on, what they think of how they're being managed, and where they feel things are going wrong and where they perceive weaknesses.

I have managers, and I'm fortunate to have people whom I trust, and they are brilliant. However, it's important for me to be informed about what's happening.

There's a kind of 'trust, but verify' process that occurs.

Trust to go and execute, but verify and understand what's happening at the bottom. 

I'm finding that you can learn a lot from people at every level of the business.

When above a certain level in a company, people often tell their bosses what they want to hear, but people at the lower levels will tell you more.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

One of the other things that's interesting about remote teams is how they handle challenges when the going gets tough.

How do you keep people motivated when they're, if you like, taking a beating?

What's your approach to navigating challenging times and supporting your team during those periods?

Augusta Aiken:

What we do is we have a global call every Friday where every single person in the company is on that call.

And every single Friday, we will do updates, training, and other things.

But every single Friday, I will always talk about success stories, I'll talk about promotions, and I'll talk about the good stuff.

I'm also a very real person. So I'll tell them that things aren't good, like when the market isn't doing well, but we're here, we're good, we're continuing.

You need to have the resilience to get through this time because things don't always go as planned.

So it's about giving your team the support they need to know that the company's okay, and we'll support you through this time.

But you have to do the work to make that a reality.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

Is it the case that you can simply focus on developing new markets?

You've already expanded into a series of different geographical markets over the last few years.

Let's say you're going to enter a new market.

How would you approach that?

Are you one of those individuals who conducts extensive research, develops a market entry strategy, and hires staff to support you?

Or are you the kind of person that says, OK, well, we're, we're going to go into the US and this is how we're going to do it?

I mean, where would you be on that spectrum?

Augusta Aiken:

I'm a doer, I'm an executor.

I won't spend hours researching. I will see if there's a demand.

I'll have clients already there who want to hire and who have enough for us to do.

Then I'll start small before we scale. For example, I'll share what I did in Mumbai.

So, nearly three years ago, I went to Mumbai and used local accountants and professionals to get everything set up correctly, including lawyers, etc.

Then I got a small four-person office and hired, you know, spent time interviewing, getting the right people, and hired four people and started.

So we definitely don't, we don't do loads of research.

We don't spend hundreds of thousands on market research and consultants, etc.

We just say, OK, we'll start small.

So it has time to work because if you start big, you have less time.

The smaller you are, the smaller you are in that area, the more time you have.

Start small, give them the time to succeed and fund it.

And then, eventually, it will follow the existing demand while minimising the risk.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

I see the sense of that.

Has the business evolved significantly as you've expanded into various locations and gained insight into how different parts of the world operate in the context of relationship recruitment and your work? 

Is the business currently evolving rapidly?

Augusta Aiken:

 

Yes, the business is evolving rapidly, and the more we expand into different locations, the more we will grow. 

I think that you see how different the markets are in different places. That's why it's amazing. It diversifies your risk, and then on top of that, you have people on the ground from very different cultures. So that's also part of our success. 

For example, when we have clients in India who want to hire locally, and I have a team in India, they speak their language and understand the culture, which is essential because they operate very differently. 

The speed in different locations also varies. 

For example, the pace is different when you go to Amsterdam; In Amsterdam, the pace is slightly slower than in India, but the people in Amsterdam understand that pace. They know how their clients prefer to work. 

In India, it's rapid, and you need to have people on the ground to be able to see that, because if you're sitting in one location, like London or wherever it may be, and you're trying to operate all over the world, you often miss something. 

You miss that like connection to that culture and the way they operate.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

I was about to ask you about that point. How do you make the connection?

How do you make the necessary connections so that, if you know how to do things in India and you know how to do things in London, you can effectively transition between the two?

So they've done things the right way without diluting all the other things that your business stands for.

Augusta Aiken:

Different clients want different things, so they ultimately help us architect the service they need. 

So for example, my Indian team will work on with clients in India and then my London team are working with clients in London and Europe and the US. 

However, the one thing that remains standardised across the entire business is our value system. It's how we go about getting things done. Our values are honesty, loyalty, and outstanding. 

So the service is outstanding. 
We're loyal to clients 
And we're honest. 

That doesn't change across the company, but the way they do things might be slightly different, such as the speed of operations, but the service will always be outstanding.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

Now, let me pick up your point about your honesty value.

That's a good thing.

No one would dispute that it might create problems for you if you're in an area with significant corruption.

My experience has shown that there can be a significant amount of corruption in places around the globe.

How do you manage that tension if you're in an area where there's potentially a lot of tension or conflict between your values and how things are done in that world?

How do you manage those kind of ethical challenges?

Augusta Aiken:

So when I talk about honesty, OK, so if a client, for example, or a candidate, you know, isn't honest that that's their problem, we'll be honest.

So, for a candidate, we'll question the person, ask them probing questions, and then relay the information back to the client or the candidate in a truthful manner, as it was presented. We won't try to alter information.

So we stay honest. 

You may be in a place where things are more fluent in terms of stuff like ethics, but we stay true to our values. We don't want to tarnish our name just because corruption is going on. 

We maintain our brand. 

We keep to what we say we're going to do. Even if that results in lower numbers.

If you look at it, for example, as Warren Buffett always says. He says:

We can afford to lose. 
We can afford to lose sales. 
We can afford to lose revenue. 

We can't afford to lose our name.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

So, what you're really saying is your reputation is the most important thing.

Augusta Aiken:

Always.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

So, let me take you back.

Let's look back over the journey that you've been on.

Is there anything that you know now that you'd wish you'd known when you started out?

Augusta Aiken:

Yeah, for sure. I'm a very different person now than I was when I started.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

In what way?

Augusta Aiken:

I don't, things don't affect me so much anymore. I'm now thinking much further ahead. 

I was also very much an operator. I'm not anymore. Today, I like to have a very macro view of the business, but I wish I had known what I know now back then. 

Firstly, I would've been far stricter on who I brought into the company at the start. Now, I've developed this whole system based on seven years of success and failure. So I now know exactly what I look for when I interview. That's one thing. 

The second thing is that you spot clients who are just time-wasting; you know, those who are essentially using you for information. We now work with fewer clients, but we work with clients that we are very, very close to, and that's also quite important. 

So again, it's learning to say no.

It reflects that ethos. Learning to say no is one of the most important things, and I'm very strict with my time these days.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

Is there anything that's the converse to that?

Is there anything that you paid attention to at the beginning that you now realise was a waste of time and had minimal impact?

Augusta Aiken:

Yeah, definitely.

I paid more attention to specific clients, perhaps because they were bigger names, or I thought it was a huge opportunity. 

Still, it ultimately proved to be a waste of time. 

I also spent too much time originally thinking about getting everything perfect and growing immediately. However, I could have waited longer to implement things like increasing my staff. 

The key is to say no and not strive for perfection. It's often just about getting things moving and getting things done.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

I know you've achieved a lot, but what are the things that you're most proud of when you look back on that journey?

Augusta Aiken:

We have built a firm that people want to work for.

So, it's a firm that people really like working at, and we are gradually having an impact on the entire industry, because people are starting to see that you can do things well and still be successful.

So I'm quite proud of that. 

I'm also quite proud of the diversity within the firm, the fact that we've managed to expand globally and have people from all nationalities working here. 

You know, we have many women in the firm as well, and we've created a safe and inclusive environment where people want to work, which I find truly amazing.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

Well done!

What advice would you offer to somebody who was about to embark on a journey like yours?

Any particular hints?

Augusta Aiken:

If I were starting today, I would be very conscious of AI and ensuring that you can utilise it effectively in your business, without it taking over your operations. AI's a bit of a trend right now, that's really important to the time we're in. 

The second thing is to hire fast and fire faster. 

If someone comes in the door and they're not right, then make decisions quickly. Don't wait because you know, just waiting for what's going to happen is going to happen. So make that decision. It's not easy, but take that decision and move fast. 

The third thing is that you have to learn to have a certain type of 'yes' culture, where all ideas are explored briefly. For example, if someone has an idea for a system to improve something, that should be explored, but once it's explored, you have to be decisive and say no to most things. 

So again, it's about learning to say no.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

Let me ask you a couple of final questions before we wind up.

You've talked a lot about the fascinating journey that you've been on. You've been very successful, which I am very impressed with.

Tell me about a few of the exciting things you have on the horizon.

Augusta Aiken:

One of the exciting developments for us at the moment is that we are set to open in the US.

That's pretty exciting, but it's definitely on the horizon.

We're definitely successful in the space where we operate. We've got a lot of traction.

People are talking about us, and that's really exciting. So, it's been seven years of building to get to a point where, in reality, it takes seven years to achieve overnight success.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

One last question. Which is not actually about you and your business, but about the industry that you're in.

You mentioned that AI is changing a lot of things, particularly in knowledge-based or data-driven industries.

Please share your thoughts on how AI might impact the recruitment industry.

Augusta Aiken:

 

Many companies will likely be able to handle a significant portion of their own internal hiring, as it streamlines the process.

They'll be able to reduce the number of people. So, AI will make a big difference in that way, with automated messaging and all that kind of stuff. 

However, recruitment as a whole will survive. The people who'll survive in recruitment will be those who build long-term relationships, because it will become far more about that. 

People will do business with you and want to do business with you because they want to pick up the phone and talk to someone who understands and can empathise with them. They'll want there to be a human element, and when a candidate wants to move firms, they'll want to speak to a real person, to liaise with a person. Therefore, it will become all about the recruiters who have excellent relationships. 

It's a network at the end of the day. AI won't be able to beat that for a long time.

 

Paul Essery (The Chief Uncensored):

Exciting times, Augusta. Thank you for sharing that story.

It's an incredibly remarkable journey. Looking at it from the outside, it sounds like you've had a great time.

Despite the challenges and the natural ups and downs, it certainly sounds like it's been an interesting experience.

So, thank you for taking the time to share your story and good luck going forward.

I'm sure there are lots of exciting things that'll be happening, and I'm sure you'll ride that roller coaster very successfully.

So thank you.

Augusta Aiken:

Cheers, see you soon.