Season 9 | Ep23 Ben Richardson & Mike Bott: Why LHi Group appointed two CEOs
The RAG Podcast - Recruitment Agency Growth Podcast
Risks to a co-CEO model
They say broken trust, ego or boredom could derail co-leadership and stress implicit mutual trust.
Ben Richardson & Mike Bott: Why LHi Group appointed two CEOs
For 25 years, LHi Group had one CEO.
Founder Tom Glanfield built the business from scratch with Jim Denning taking over in 2020 and leading it it through COVID.
A global recruitment group, LHi has
5 brands.
300 people.
9Offices across the US and Europe
Ben Richardson and Mike Bott had both spent their careers inside LHi.
Both joined as entry level recruiters
Both built desks, teams and international offices from the ground up.
Both eventually became global recruitment directors.
And both had their eyes on the same job.
"I wanted to be CEO about a week after I joined LHI in 2007."
When Jim Denning stepped down, the expectation was simple.
One of them would get the role.
Instead, the board made a call neither of them had anticipated.
They would run the business together.
Co-CEOs.
This week on The RAG Podcast, Ben and Mike break down how the decision happened and what it actually takes to make a leadership structure like this work.
We cover:
- How two recruiters who joined the business years apart both ended up competing for the CEO job
- The moment they were told they would be sharing the role instead of one of them taking it
- Why the board believed the co-CEO model would work for LHi
- How they divide responsibility running a global recruitment business
- The leadership principles that allow two CEOs to operate without conflict
- Why ego is the biggest risk in a structure like this
- The level of trust required to make joint leadership work long-term
- What founders should think about when planning succession inside their own businesses
- Why promoting from within can be a competitive advantage in recruitment
- What the next phase of growth looks like for LHi Group
This episode isn’t really about recruitment.
It’s about succession.
It’s about trust.
And it’s about whether the traditional idea of a single CEO is always the right answer.
Because if you’re building a recruitment business and thinking about who should lead it next…
This conversation might challenge the way you think about it!
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