Hi, I’m Hannah: founder and CEO of Meet. 

First and foremost, I am a people person. It's one of my biggest passions and one that forms the foundation of my role as CEO. 

Growing up with two parents who are medics, it doesn’t seem like such a stretch that I've ended up in Life Sciences. Ironically, when I was younger, I vowed that I would never work in Medicine, and even after studying Psychology, I knew I wouldn't go down the clinical route - I was much more interested in the business side of things. Nowadays, I couldn't think of a more meaningful, necessary, and fulfilling industry to be a part of.  

Studying Psychology and exploring the human mind only inflated my interest in people; why they behave the way they do and why individuals are as they are. Fundamentally, it was this interest that led me to recruitment. 

I started my career with Progressive (part of the SThree Group), a big corporate company. Like most people’s first job, it wasn’t always rosy, but I did receive brilliant training and development, was surrounded by people who inspired ambition, and met my husband, best friends and co-founders, for which I am eternally grateful. 

As my career progressed, leading a team focused on pharmaceuticals at Progressive, I knew I wanted to stay in recruitment, but I no longer wanted to be a small cog in a big corporate machine. I wanted to be the one making the decisions! I’m a solutions-focused individual who wants to drive change, so being in a more autonomous environment was what I felt I needed to reach my potential. 

In 2009, along with two of my SThree colleagues, I launched Meet. We wanted to build a dynamic business dedicated to people; committed to creating opportunities for our candidates, clients, and our team. Not only that, but I was (and continue to be) ambitious that Meet will be a market leader in its field and drive change where it’s needed. Initially, we didn’t have a roadmap or any support, but I thrived in that environment! Having the liberty to drive something of my own forward, although it wasn’t always easy, I never felt more fulfilled or successful. 

Once we’d built and solidified relationships within the European Life Sciences market, we set our sights on the U.S., and in 2015, I relocated to New York to launch the brand stateside. A year later, we expanded to the West Coast and in 2019 we opened our fifth office in Berlin, strengthening our European market share with feet on the ground. 

Our ever-growing commitment to challenge ourselves to be the very best is what led us to seek out a financial partner, and in September 2021, I was thrilled to announce our perfect match: private equity firm, NorthEdge. Together our mission is to continue the upward trajectory of reaching new places, markets, and customers so we can better support the people and businesses within Life Sciences and its associated industries.

As the business continues to grow, it becomes increasingly important to retain the unique, inclusive culture we’ve built, and I am entirely committed to ensuring that we evolve without ever diluting who we are at our core, and what ultimately makes Meet a great place to be. I’m incredibly proud of our people-centric approach; it’s the foundation of our success, drives future opportunity, and only positively impacts our clients and candidates. 

As Meet’s leader, I want to inspire people to be the best they can be, and give Meet’s people the freedom to think differently. That’s how businesses thrive; by unearthing smarter and faster ways to scale. 

I recognise that it’s impossible to be everything to everyone, but I also know the greatest CEOs are those who fuse skills in coaching, mentoring and counselling with the imperative tools of listening to, appreciating and asking incisive questions of those around them. It’s my aim to do this for my team. 

As a female leader, and mother, working in a heavily male-dominated industry, I feel a responsibility to immerse myself into the world of ESG and DE&I. I’ve always championed Meet as being an environment where it is accepted, embraced, and encouraged to be your whole self. 

With this in mind, we have built a global Awareness Committee whose mission is to educate on social issues and sustain a platform where diversity is championed, a safe space is created, and biases are removed. But our work doesn’t stop there. On a personal level, I am incredibly passionate about our environmental impact and with the climate crisis ongoing, now is the time to act. 

We’ve created an infrastructure centred around sustainability, including partnering with Positive Planet to build a Net Zero strategy. With all our ESG efforts, we will continue to be transparent about the actions we take and the impacts they have, no matter how big or small they might be.  

We’ve been through a few chapters of Meet’s story already, but I truly believe the best ones are yet to be written and I can’t wait to see how our story unfolds.

Here’s to the future!