We are delighted to announce the return to our team of Emma Marsden, as our new Learning & Development Director. Our long-term clients will no doubt remember her as Emma Wright, and be as pleased as we are to learn of her return. After a ten-year gap, during which Emma got married, had three children and worked in a range of roles from customer services and business development to executive assistant and trainer, Emma was finally persuaded by our MD, Lorraine, to rejoin the team.
When Emma first joined us in 2010, she had recently left the Navy, where she served as a Naval Police Officer. She first worked on our ‘temp desk’, finding the perfect matches between candidates and vacancies, using her shrewd ability to judge people, and to discern which placements would suit both clients and candidates. By 2013, Emma was managing all our operations; working in recruitment; brilliant handling client liaison; and generally being Lorraine’s right hand.
Then, one fateful evening, Lorraine introduced Emma to her future husband, Ben, and Emma’s life took a different direction, taking her into her dream of marriage and family. With a new season beginning, Emma struck out to broaden her experience, working for a variety of organisations, including a client of Pursuit’s. Emma developed her career further, including acting as an executive assistant to several board directors. Despite having three young children, Emma also gained invaluable HR experience and acquired experience in mental health awareness; as well as becoming adept in delivering staff training and development.
A new role
Now, happily, Emma has been persuaded to return as a consultant, working on our own team’s learning and development, helping to ensure that our entire team has a firm grounding in every aspect of both our divisions, Pursuit Resources and Pursuit Executive.
Emma will monitor and encourage consistent use and application of all our processes and systems, including the use of CRM systems, search engines and job boards. Perhaps more importantly, she will be coaching new members of our expanding team in using our customer and candidate processes and helping them to find their feet rapidly in our fast-paced work environment. It will be her mission to ensure that each team member is supported and encouraged to develop to their full potential.
Lorraine Phair said, “I could not be more pleased that Emma has agreed to return to us. We have stayed in touch over the past ten years, and it has been wonderful seeing not only how she and Ben have established their lovely family, but also how Emma has grown her skill set, knowledge, and expertise. It is quite a coup for us to have her return in this exciting new role. We are always looking for opportunities for our candidates to train and progress in the roles that we identify for them, so it is important to me that I can offer similar opportunities for learning and development to our own team. I already know that Emma will be a huge asset.”
Emma also commented, “It is not often that you get to combine a growing passion for your work with the opportunity to collaborate with a firm friend and trusted colleague. It has been great to be able to stay in touch with Lorraine over the years and I am delighted that the time is now right for me to work with the Pursuit team once again.”
Emma joins Pursuit during a major landmark year for the company. In the past year we have launched a new division in the form of Pursuit Executive, unveiled a new website, and we are now welcoming new team members as we press on into this period of growth.
Welcome back, Emma!