James Reed CBE is the Chairman & Chief Executive of Reed – the UK’s best known recruitment brand and the largest family-owned recruitment company in the world. James has twice been voted in the Top 20 UK CEO’s by Glassdoor and was awarded a CBE in 2022 for his services to business and charity.

Reed was founded in 1960 by James’s father, Sir Alec Reed, and is now a global recruitment company, with more than 3,000 employees working in 140 locations worldwide.

There are three things that I would like you to know about Reed:

1

We are a family business

2

We care passionately about the work we do

3

Our values mean everything to us

Our brand message is simple: “Love Mondays.” At the heart of this message is our firmly held belief that everyone should be able to find fulfilling work. We are here to help people do just that. Our purpose is “Improving lives through work”. We believe in building businesses for the benefit of society and we’re proud to make a positive difference to people’s lives. We change people’s lives every time that we place someone new into a new role. To me, this work is a privilege. Recruitment is not just a job, it’s a vocation.

James Reed - CEO and Chairman of REED and reed.co.uk stood in office looking at camera

Our business values are the same as our family values:

We are fair, open and honest – We take ownership – We work together

I like to say, “Our Values, your values; our future, your future”. If you share these values, then we have the possibility of a great future working together.

At Reed, we want to create opportunities and we want people to join us who will make the most of those opportunities. We want our company to learn and grow, we want you too as well.

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