Our People

Robin Staveley

Lead Partner

Robin joined GatenbySanderson as Health Partner in 2010 after 3 ½ years establishing and leading the Health Practice of a leading recruiter.  He brings 10 years' experience recruiting to senior roles across health organisations including the Chairs and chief executives of Foundation Trusts, NHS Trusts, Strategic Health Authorities, Primary Care Trusts and non-NHS organisations such as Royal Colleges and the third sector.  His non executive recruitment experience includes not-for-profit organisations and government departments and agencies such as the Maritime & Coastguard Agency, Highways Agency, Security Services and financial services regulators.

Previously, Robin led the Leeds office of a public sector recruiter for 4 years. He spent 5 years with an international search and selection firm after 12 years in the Army. He was awarded the MBE in 1996. He has an MBA and a BA (Hons).

Mark Turner

Senior Partner

Mark is the Lead Partner for GatenbySanderson's London office, which encompasses Central Government Departments and their agencies, local authorities and the Voluntary Sector.

Formerly Managing Director at Veredus, Mark has 17 years' experience in executive search and selection, specialising in Board-level executive and non-executive appointments for the Public Sector. He specialises in advising on start-ups for Agencies and NDPBs and has co-authored three research pieces on creating, developing and leading effective Boards.

Mark's track record includes recruitment of the Chair, Director General and top team of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (he is currently working with the Home Office to appoint a successor to Sir Stephen Lander); Chair, Chief Executive and non-executive Board members of the National Policing Improvement Agency and the top team for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. He has appointed executive and non-executive Board members to the Youth Justice Board, Local Better Regulation Office and the IPCC among others. He has also delivered non-executive appointments in health care at a local or regional level.

Mark also specialises in senior Whitehall appointments, placing the first Chief Executive of the National Apprenticeship Service in 2008 and a successor to Professor Sir Michael Barber as Director General Performance and Head of the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit in 2007. He is currently working to appoint to four Director General roles in central departments.

Jo Austin

Senior Consultant

Jo joined GatenbySanderson London office in 2008 in order to further strengthen our local government team and is now taking a lead role in working with clients across the health sector.  She has eight years experience in executive search and has worked with a wide range of organisations across health, local and central government and education, including senior appointments for the Care Quality Commission, Local Government Association, the Audit Commission, a wide range of London Boroughs and County Councils.

She has recently worked on the recruitment of the top finance team for South London Healthcare NHS Trust, successfully appointing to all five roles first time within a highly challenging timescale and when the predecessor Trusts had experienced great difficulty recruiting to senior level posts. Jo has also worked on the appointment of a Chief Executive for the new General Pharmaceutical Council and two Joint Director roles for NHS Islington and Islington Council in the last couple of months.     

Madeleine Owen

Senior Consultant, Assessment and Development

Madeleine joined GatenbySanderson in Leeds as a Senior Consultant in April 2009. She was previously an Assessment Consultant at a search consultancy in Cheshire, where she worked with organisations across the public and private sectors. Madeleine advises her clients on best practice approaches to identifying and developing talented people. She supports them with activities such as assessing leadership qualities for recruitment and personal development; designing and facilitating 360-degree feedback programmes; building high performing teams; and constructing leadership competency frameworks. Madeleine is trained to use a wide variety of psychometric tools and she has considerable experience of designing bespoke work simulation exercises.

Madeleine has worked within local government, NDPBs, charitable organisations and higher education. In particular, she has in-depth knowledge of the NHS, having worked extensively within the sector. She writes regularly for the Health Service Journal. She has also worked with household names such as Orange, Mothercare and Nestlé, which gives her a broad range of experience to share with her clients.

A graduate of the University of Manchester, Madeleine has a First Class Honours degree in Psychology and an MSc in Occupational Psychology.

Sam Ellis

Head of Marketing

Sam has extensive marketing experience having worked on the client and agency side within the private sector before joining GatenbySanderson. As well as taking the marketing lead for GS, Sam also heads up online product development and digital solutions for clients. She recently developed an end to end recruitment solution from scratch designed to generate additional candidates and provide internal efficiencies. This is now being rolled out nationally.

Previously, Sam has helped to manage the launch of several successful brands including Caffrey’s, J2O & Jet2, as well as working with top organisations such as Next, McCain, Bulmers, Britvic and Napolina across their portfolio of brands. With extensive experience in the drinks, leisure and service industries, she has a particular interest in making big ideas work in the commercial world. Creative thinking, effective project management and a focus upon delivery are the tools of her trade.