Phaidon International (US)

Phaidon International (US)

• Rank: 9
• Headquarters: New York
• Top staffing segment(s) served –  Finance/accounting, Life sciences
• 2019 US staffing revenue – $88.4 million
• Compound annual growth rate – 47.3%
• Website: www.phaidoninternational.com

When it was founded in 2004, Phaidon International began with three main strategies to help it grow. Fast-forward to today and those three strategies continue to drive growth at Phaidon.

The first of those strategies is to expand geographically. While Phaidon was founded with one office in London, it now has 12 across Europe, the US and Asia. Phaidon plans to continue to expand across these three regions once the pandemic subsides. (Only US-derived revenue was considered for the Fastest-Growing US Staffing Firms list.)

The group’s second strategy for growth is organic headcount. The group’s business model is to hire graduates right out of university and train them in what CEO Harry Youtan describes as a “very core Phaidon-centric way.”

When Phaidon opens new offices, the group exports a management team to the new office from an existing location to ensure continuity of practices, standards, ethics and understanding of the Phaidon model. The group is now in the process of opening up an office in Los Angeles with existing management from another location in the US.

COO Steve Yendell says Phaidon’s organic headcount model has proven to work in the past 16 years and it has also proven to work during the pandemic.

Phaidon’s third strategy for growth is to diversify its business by sector.

“We were founded focused on financial services,” Youtan said. “But if you fast forward to today, we have five different end markets that we serve, all of which are not directly competing but they all satisfy strong candidate demand and candidate scarcity.”

According to Yendell, another key factor in Phaidon’s growth is its investment in talent and technology and the company has recently increased its resources in learning and development as well as technology, aiming to add value to clients and improve its service level.

In terms of technology, Phaidon predicts growing candidate autonomy in the marketplace. Ultimately, Phaidon believes that the demand from talent is going to increase.

“One of the things that we are continuing to do is look at technology innovation that allows candidates to increase their choice, increase their understanding of the opportunities available to them and support this trend of candidates being an active participant in their career as opposed to just the recipient of the job opportunities that are put in front of them by their local recruiter,” Yendell says.

The group’s investment in technology has also allowed them to become 100% remote at a flick of the switch when the pandemic hit. However, Phaidon has still faced challenges amid the Covid-19 crisis.

Some of Phaidon’s clients faced problems when it came to onboarding talent and many slowed down or postponed the onboarding process for candidates. However, Phaidon recently has seen an increase in hiring as clients and candidates become more comfortable in the current environment.

Phaidon’s clear model for growth and organic culture, “underpinned by strong client relationships that are mutually beneficial to them and us has meant that we are in a very strong place both now and looking forward,” Youtan says.