Meet the Team

Chairman

Since graduating in 1992 with a BSc in Computer Science, Paul has had a successful and varied career in the field of recruitment. His particular strength has been in building up strong, collaborative relationships with clients, and in 1996 he established Advanced Resource Managers Limited as specialist IT and Business recruitment company. Paul continues to work with key clients for ARM, and keeps up with the latest issues in technical recruitment. He continues to network with industry professionals, promoting best practice in the recruitment industry.

Paul’s hobbies are snowboarding, golf, (“if you can call it that”, as he says), mountain biking and water sports.

Keith Sammons

Operations Director

Prior to taking his first steps in Recruitment in 1983 Keith had gained a BA (Hons) degree in Economics and picked up some telesales experience along the way.

Beginning in Industrial and Driving recruitment and progressing through Commercial, Sales, IT and Technical sectors, Keith has built up a wealth of experience of the industry across organisations of varying sizes and structures ranging from small start-ups to an AIM listed plc.

This experience has encompassed most aspects of the recruitment industry including Temporary, Permanent, Managed Services, Search and Selection and the general fabric of running a business.

In addition to his work with recruitment companies, Keith has also operated in the training industry, helping unemployed people to return to the work place.

Having first worked with ARM as an external consultant, Keith formally joined the firm in 2011 excited by the prospect of contributing to a rapidly developing organisation with an excellent culture.

As Operations Director Keith has assumed executive responsibility for the support services functions in the business (excluding finance and HR), as well as contributing to the overall strategy, policy and running of the business.

Outside of the workplace Keith is a family man who combines this with his passions for sport, music and Real Ale. He’s a Chelsea fan and long-term amateur footballer, although age and injury have restricted his participation to sideline or grandstand activity.

Martin Grady

ARM Consulting Divisional Director

Martin spent 12 years in the Writers branch of the Royal Navy, and has worked in recruitment since 1999. He worked at IBM first as an HR Consultant and then as Manager for Manpower, before going on to work for a major technical recruitment company. He was involved in setting up a new division which became a highly successful managed services provider.

During this time Martin implemented many new accounts, writing business processes in line with client service level agreements. He was responsible for ensuring that all clients’ needs and expectations were met following the sales process. Implementation included small accounts all the way through to a major consultancy which has circa 80 offices. He was responsible for all contractor novation and supplier management for each account that he implemented.

In recent years Martin has run his own consultancy, working as Recruitment and HR Manager for a major automotive consultancy. He has also set up a new interim and contracting division for a search and selection company working in clean energy.

As Director of ARM Consulting he will develop and manage all services outside of contingency recruitment. This includes ARM Training, Executive Search, HR and Recruitment Consultancy, Senior HR and Procurement recruitment and Managed Services.

Martin is a keen dinghy and offshore sailor, having sailed in a number of World, European and National regattas. He is also a keen supporter of Welsh rugby and Manchester United and is a very poor golfer.

Francis Jones

IT Divisional Director

Francis (Fran) initially moved to the South Coast from his home town of Leigh in Lancashire to study for a Law Degree in Southampton. After graduating in 1996 he moved to London and began his career within recruitment as a junior resourcer within one of the City's bigger IT recruitment firms. He quickly acquired the skills needed to operate within these competitive markets and spent the first 5 years of his recruitment career moving through the management ranks, where he quickly realised his first directorship within an AIM listed technology recruitment firm.

Fran believes his core skills are based in the delivery of cost efficient and professional IT recruitment services to both growing (SME) and established Enterprise IT environments. He prides himself on developing and coaching recruitment teams that are not only trained and focussed on providing the highest levels of delivery available in the market place to our clients and candidates, but his teams are focused on developing as a unit - growing with our clients and candidates to be leaders in what they do.

Moving back to the South Coast in 2009 was a decision that Fran made for two reasons - the opportunity to join ARM and add to their unique approach to Human Capital Management along with the chance to allow his young family to grow up in the New Forest and by the Beach was just too good an opportunity to ignore.

When not in work, spending time with his young family and enjoying the wonderful countryside of Hampshire is very important to him. Also Fran views philanthropy as central to his main hobbies - he is always in training for some marathon, Ultra marathon, Desert Trek or mountain climb with an aim to raising funds for some local charity. When he is not doing this, he enjoys playing cricket for his local village team, and the subsequent after match pint to ease the pain of his inevitable batting and bowling failure.

Paul Martin

Engineering Client Relationship Director

Paul began his career as an apprentice-served electronics engineer with Plessey Avionics, and moved into recruitment in 1989. Although starting out in generalist recruitment for both permanent and contract roles, Paul’s original training led him to specialise in high technology design disciplines such as electronics, software and systems engineering. His in-depth understanding of this field means his clients enjoy a unique service; Paul combines knowledge of the engineering community and the recruitment industry and has worked in a broad range of roles covering Business Development, Major Account Management, and Service Delivery. Paul brought this wide experience to ARM when he co-founded the Engineering Division with Mike Gawthorne in 2000. He has company-wide responsibility for all business development strategy and implementation and helps to ensure our core values are understood by the wider world.

Paul enjoys sport, in particular football (watching and playing every week), golf (he insists he is still at the hacking stage) and snooker, as well as relaxing and watching films (when his children allow) and spending time at his parents’ home in Spain on holiday.