Antal International has launched 5 new offices in June 2007 that span from the UK London, UK Lancashire, Malta, Belgium and Nigeria. As more professionals choose to join Antal International Network, we are proud of the diverse backgrounds, nationalities and skills. Our launch into the African continent firmly secures our position as one of the fastest growing and most successful privately owned international recruitment companies.

Antal International Network Launches into Africa

Antal International has launched 5 new offices in June 2007, that span from the UK London, UK Lancashire, Malta, Belgium and Nigeria. As more professionals choose to join Antal International Network, we are proud of the diverse backgrounds, nationalities and skills.

Our launch into the African continent firmly secures our position as one of the fastest growing and most successful privately owned international recruitment companies.

Funmi Wale-Adegbite’s Story

My family is from Nigeria, although I was born in the UK where I completed my academic studies, graduating with an MSc from Cranfield University in Management Science and Computer Applications in 1995.

My first job was as a systems analyst working for IBM and one of its biggest clients – Unilever.

After that I was employed by Deloitte as an IT consultant working on a wide range of privatisation projects within the utilities sector in the UK.

After getting married, I moved back to Nigeria and continued to work for Deloitte. However, after a year, and with the support of my family, I launched an IT recruitment business that served the needs of indigenous and multi-national clients such as Guinness, BAT and Unilever.

This business grew incredibly quickly to the point where today, I employ a small team of four researchers. There was virtually no competition in the home market for the service I provided and through national press advertising, my business grew from strength to strength.

As a consequence, I was being asked to handle much more work outside of pure IT recruitment, for example, providing international talent search services for companies across Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

My challenge was how to service this demand as I didn’t have an international network of my own and wanted the confidence of delivering an excellent service to my clients in meeting their requirements.

It was at that point I considered turning my recruitment business into a franchise of Antal International, even though Antal didn’t have any presence on the African sub-continent. But things are just about to change…

Expanding the local market

In Nigeria, after having had a highly successful print media campaign, I decided to run a short billboard campaign entitled “Recruit Globally,” and we were very quickly inundated with requests from businesses in Nigeria who wanted to recruit project managers, production and manufacturing engineers from India and anywhere we could get them. We were also being approached by candidates looking for professional jobs abroad.

I looked at a couple of options within the UK and outside the UK that I thought could help my business meet these new demands.

For example, I looked at another well-known recruitment franchise. But it was mainly focused on the US market. I also didn’t feel that their offices were networked seamlessly.

However, I continued to research the options and through my membership of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) in the UK, I came across Antal.

First impressions

I first read about iWorkLife in Recruitment International magazine and whilst I was in the UK – in fact the day I was due to fly back to Nigeria – I telephoned Liz Kilford and asked if I could come and see her to talk about franchise opportunities at Antal.

I asked all sorts of questions, including the experiences of those franchisees that hadn’t succeeded and why. I found Liz to be totally open and very straightforward in all her responses and she never tried to ‘sell’ to me at all.

Interestingly, since I’ve now become part of the Antal Global Network, all the things Liz told me at the time have been completely verified and in fact it gets better and better all the time the more I learn what Antal can do to support my business back in Nigeria.

How I’m using the Antal network now

I’m now able to genuinely offer a turnkey recruitment solution to all of my clients back in Nigeria and in fact, the whole of Africa. I’m now revisiting lapsed clients to make them aware of these new services so I’m re-establishing my business over again on a very secure footing.

I’m also able to approach new clients in very fast moving sectors that are opening up in Nigeria such as telecoms, oil and gas, energy, manufacturing and financial services.

Why I think I’ll succeed as an Antal franchisee

I eat, drink and sleep recruitment and how I can push my business forward! In fact I’m planning to take Antal to the whole African continent – not just Nigeria – and I’m excited about that. So even though I’m a franchisee, I will still have a place in the history of Antal.

Change in the nature of my recruitment business

I expect that in the next 12 months, around 40% of my business in Nigeria will be from international placements.

Outside of this there’s a huge number of ‘expatriate Nigerians’ coming back to Nigeria to work who’ve got skills and experience gained abroad, which are extremely valuable back home.

This has been precipitated by a huge influx of Foreign Direct Investment in Nigeria from multi-national companies expanding their operations across many sectors such as oil and gas and telecoms.

My vision

As an Antal franchisee, within the next 24 months I want to be the first choice for international companies and local firms looking to recruit talent at all levels of their business across the whole of Africa.

Commenting on this expansion…

“All of us at Antal International are delighted to welcome Funmi to our Network and know that with her professionalism and determination to succeed, she will champion our brand with the ethics and quality standards we have worked so hard over the past 15 years to create,” notes Liz Kilford, Franchise Development Director.

Doug Bugie, Senior Advisor to the Antal International Network Board concludes, “Antal has a proven platform for success that is transferable and scalable globally. I think it is a highly effective and profitable franchise formula; so effective that seasoned performers like Funmi Wale-Adegbite are joining far around the world. However it remains an excellent way for an executive to break into recruitment and instantly join a high-impact international recruitment group, one of the fastest growing in the world today.”