What is the 30under30?
30under30 is an Anthill initiative launched in early 2008 to encourage and promote entrepreneurship among young Australians.
Each year, we invite our readers to nominate young Australian entrepreneurs deserving of recognition for their outstanding entrepreneurial endeavours. More.
Sinead Connolly, NSW (b. 1988)
Name: Sinead Connolly
Age: 29
Known for: Lotus People
With no experience running a business, Sinead set up a recruitment agency which in two years has grown to 10 people, has won multiple awards, has been recognised in the media and has an enviable culture initiative – free yoga, PT and unlimited snacks!
Sinead’s company Lotus People is a business support recruitment agency which has a passion for excellence and an unshakeable desire to create a different recruitment experience.
“In an industry where candidates can be seen as a commodity and relationships transient, our talented consultants use their extensive experience and local knowledge to build and grow strong networks within the Sydney market,” she told Anthill, “This approach enables us to source the very best office support, marketing and human resources professionals for our clients across a range of industry sectors.”
“I put a huge focus and emphasis on our internal culture and my vision to have a collaborative, high performing, cohesive team who treat candidates and clients with the upmost respect has been realized. Lotus People was established with a vision to set a new standard of client/candidate service level expectations and to create a different experience to the industry norm.”
In just two years, Lotus People has placed over 1000 candidates in jobs, overachieved on every financial target and grown its team from 2 to 10 staff. They have also worked with a large portfolio of over 140 clients and have exclusively won business with some household names.
Since opening the company has been shortlisted for/won the following awards;
- Winner: Best Small Agency to Work For: Recruitment International Awards 2017
- com.au SARA Awards ‑ Finalist; Small Agency of the Year; 2016
- Finalist: Rising Star: Recruitment International Awards 2017
- Winner: Recruitment Services: Small Business Champion Awards 2017
- Finalist: Sinead Connolly: Young Entrepreneur: Chamber of Commerce Awards 2017
- Winner: Sinead Connolly: Young Entrepreneur: Irish Australian Chamber of Commerce Awards 2017
However, Sinead’s entrepreneurial journey hasn’t been without its bumps in the road.
“My biggest setback happened when in January this year her co‑founder decided to exit the business due to personal reasons. This departure meant that I responsible for double the workload – managing a team of six, generating the majority of the revenue, the vast majority of the client facing and all business strategy,” she shared with Anthill.
“Without prior experience in management or in running a business, I had to put a number of strategies in place around hiring, training, growth, retention, client engagement and service level agreements to ensure that the business didn’t suffer and to ensure that we continued to increase profit and revenue.”
Anthill asks: What motivates you as an entrepreneur?
Since inception, there have been a few bumps in the road. Initially, the investor who approached us to open the agency dropped out at the early stages after we left our previous company, leaving us with significant expenses and no starting capital. We went out to market at this point and met 8 recruitment agencies and pitched our agency to them. Four offered us investment and we happily partnered with SustainAbility Consulting. The directors of SC are perfect fits for us and have been incredible mentors and without the first investor dropping out, we never would have met them!
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