Meet the Team

Gail Pyrah, Managing Director

Prior to the formation of Gail Pyrah & Associates in 1990 by Gail she had been employed by Reckitt & Colman (now Reckitt Benckiser) as a senior HR Manager, with a particular emphasis on employee resourcing and team development. During that part of her career she was actively involved in worldwide purchasing initiatives designed to strengthen the competence of all staff within the function.

Gail Pyrah & Associates became GPA when it was incorporated in 1997; traded successfully as CIPS GPA for nearly 5 years and returned to independence in May 2011 in order to further invest in a leading brand and to develop strategies that will embrace the ever changing face of recruitment.

As Senior Partner of the business, her main focus throughout has been to provide a quality recruitment service to clients and candidates alike. She has been responsible for helping to establish and develop best-in-class purchasing teams in many organisations and she continues to support the recruitment needs of a wide array of clients in both the private and public sector. MBA and HR qualified, she has established an excellent reputation in her field.

Giles Sinclar, Interim Resource Director

Giles has been working within the Recruitment and Personnel Industry since 1995. After gaining his BA Honours Degree in Business Studies from Sheffield Hallam University, Giles went on to work for Barclays Bank as a Personnel Consultant where he employed the services of Manpower for the recruitment of 60 temps on a daily basis. This led to him being offered a role with Manpower as a Consultant and within 12 months of working as a Consultant, Giles was promoted to the role of Branch Manager. He continued to develop his career as both a Business Manager and as a Consultant working initially for Manpower and then for two other major high-street recruitment companies before joining GPA in 2000.

Since joining GPA, Giles has developed excellent business relationships with his clients and has developed an impressive client base of FTSE100 companies. He has also developed an excellent client base within the public sector and has successfully managed key campaigns for numerous central and local government departments. He services a range of clients across various industry sectors supplying both permanent and interim staff and has managed major recruitment initiatives including search and advertising campaigns. Since 2005, Giles has headed up the Interim recruitment division within GPA providing added value interim resource to both private and public sector clients. He became a Partner in the business in 2009.

Michael Holding, Consultant

Michael has been working in recruitment since 2001. Having initially graduated with a BA (Hons) in Tourism and Planning, he joined TMP Worldwide in London to work as a Resourcer within the Banking & Finance team where he spent 18 months resourcing newly qualified accountants into Investment Banking and Financial Services. In pursuit of a better quality of life, he relocated to Harrogate and worked as a Researcher for a local firm working with both direct clients and Executive Search firms. Having spent 2.5 years there, he was headhunted to join a construction specialist recruiter based in Leeds. Michael spent 4 successful years there recruiting quantity surveyors and project managers into construction consultancies and was promoted from Consultant to Senior Consultant. Michael joined the GPA team in September 2008 and has been managing multiple and single contingency based recruitment campaigns across a wide range of sectors.

Alex Steel, Consultant

Alex’s career in Recruitment started in 1995 when she joined an International Search organisation, initially as a Researcher before being promoted and professionally trained in London to become an Executive Search Consultant. Alex specialised in Procurement related roles having built a recruitment desk from scratch. In this role Alex was involved in the sourcing, marketing and placement of high calibre individuals, incorporating head-hunting and full search and selection techniques. Deciding to capitalise on her success in the Procurement Industry, Alex marketed her own CV to CIPS and joined CIPS Recruitment in 1997, before becoming part of CIPS GPA in September 2005. In her time with CIPS, Alex presented to numerous Branches across the UK with a Recruitment Road show entitled “Your career, it’s not a rehearsal” and assisted numerous CIPS Members over the years with invaluable advice on how to market themselves through their CV and how to interview for success.

Alex briefly left CIPS GPA in August 2007, having taken the decision to work in a more generalist environment for a few months but soon recognised that once Procurement was in her blood it was there to stay! She returned to GPA in June 2008 and although she works on a broad range of assignments, her principal focus is within the Public Sector. She is part of a winning team that has made many successful placements.

Marcus Ritchie, Account Director

Marcus has significant experience in both procurement line roles and specialist procurement recruitment. His 9 years in procurement began with Rolls-Royce buying a range of indirect goods and services for global operations. At Asda, in a quasi procurement-supply chain role, he was responsible for overhauling supplier delivery performance via negotiating improved supply chain SLA’s to ease pressure on distribution sectors. Marcus also spent a year on the procurement contracting market working as Procurement Development Manager within the manufacturing sector.

Marcus changed career direction and since 2000 has spent that time specialising in the recruitment of procurement professionals across the UK and Europe. He has interviewed over 1,000 procurement professionals and has worked with over 300 different organisations across a wide range of sectors, developing successful and long-term relationships with a number of key clients.  He has a strong track record of delivery in search and in managing volume campaigns across multiple sectors recruiting candidates  up to CPO level. As Head of Procurement Practice he established a new regional recruitment office, managing a small team of UK based procurement specialists before joining GPA in January 2010.