Mike Difford Email & Phone Number

London, Gb

Baltimore, Md, Us

Leading talent acquisition for Sapio Sciences, devising workforce strategy for an innovative SaaS life sciences scale up. I have successfully scaled the organization by 50%, delivering recruitment excellence across Europe, the US, and APAC.-Talent Expertise: Skilled in identifying niche biotech talent across diverse functions, including Product, Customer Success, Sales, Technology, Finance, and Marketing.-Leadership Collaboration: Partner closely with the executive leadership team, including direct sourcing for the CEO, and influence strategic hiring and workforce planning decisions.-Strategic Workforce Planning: Devised workforce strategies aligned with organisational goals, contributing to high-level budget conversations to ensure optimal resource allocation.-Sourcing Excellence: Hands-on recruiter utilising referrals, network building, Boolean searches, and AI tools to find top-tier talent.-Organisational Insight: Work cross-functionally across all departments to build deep commercial awareness of SaaS operations, aligning recruitment with business needs.-HR & Learning Development: Played a pivotal role in the rollout of a new learning management system, leveraging data visualisation and AI to enhance L&D initiatives. -Supported EMEA HR operations alongside a US counterpart.-Data-Driven Decisions: Harness AI and analytics to present recruitment metrics and strategies to executive leadership, ensuring informed decision-making.-Global Engagement: Conducted on-site visits to US offices to assess hiring needs and strengthen regional recruitment strategies.

London, London, Gb

My role at GWI: led the team who supported engineering; product; data; research; trends; finance & marketing hiring for GWI across Europe.Worked closely with stakeholders up to C-level, my job was to partner with the Business to provide advice relating to all manner of Recruitment activities. It was a fast paced, cross collaborative environment, where no two days looked the same. As well as leading a team, I was still very hands from a sourcing standpoint, and used a data-led approach to make informed decisions.

Boston, Massachusetts, Us

My role:Leading the Recruitment team for the UK and Europe, my job was to manage talent acquisition for the following areas:-End to end software development (Incl Testing; DevOps; Leadership/Project Management and BAs)-Application Science-Product Management-Sales-Marketing-LegalMy day to day responsibilities included:-Mentoring and leading the Talent Sourcers-Partnering and collaborating with the Senior leadership team to form hiring plans; Interview strategies and discuss offer negotiations.-Advising/Managing Internal recruitment-Internal stakeholder Management, up to C level-Hands on sourcing/Headhunting -Actively encouraging Diversity & Inclusion, and producing metrics and statistics -Recruitment reporting-ATS system use-Data management-Agency/Vendor management

New York, New York, Us

Working as a Technical and Operations recruitment SME, I was responsible for the end-to-end strategy; execution and delivery of the recruitment process for the ICG Technology & Operations business for the UK, based in London.- Working closely with Diversity and Talent partners to facilitate slate and panel process;promoting and managing internal mobility process.- Working with the Business, Compensation teams, Immigration lawyers and HR teams to negotiate and structure complex salary proposals.-Daily interaction with candidates of all levels of seniority, conducting qualification interviews; offer negotiations and closing of candidates.-Acted as the go to Technical Recruitment SME for the Innovation Lab, based out of the WeWork office in the City. Tasked with changing conventional opinion toward the technical environment within Citi, attracting diverse candidates from outside the FinTech industry.Positions, up to Managing Director level I oversaw; source and recruited for included:-Application development, both Front & Back end;-Data Scientists; Deep Learning and Big data specialists; Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence/AI & Data Visualisation specialists-Project Management & Software Delivery-DevOps-Cloud professionals

Zurich, Ch

Working as the Technical subject matter expert for the Bank's Corporate Centre Recruitment division.I worked closely with the Hiring teams; engaged with senior Stakeholders and looked after Technical and Operations Recruitment for positions up to Executive Director level, which covered the full SDLC across the Business.

London, England, Gb

Working with Investment Banks & FinTech Companies, as an ambassador for Huxley, and SThree as a whole, I maintained the strong reputation that the company has established, by recruiting only the best within the software development industry.-Full SDLC-Front & Back End development-DevOps-Technical Project Management & Software Delivery

Education record

Bachelor’S Degree, English Language And Literature

Gcses And A Levels, Various