Robert Baldwin

After an early career in creative media and consulting Robert moved into Executive Search in the 1980’s. In 1989 the search firm he was managing was acquired by a global media and communications corporation and he went in-house as Group Recruitment & Development Director. He was subsequently appointed European HR Director reporting to global HQ in the USA.

He joined executive search firm Alexander Hughes in 1994 where he established and ran a successful advertised recruitment division, reporting to HQ in Paris. He also established and jointly managed their Professional Services executive search practice across EMEA and was a core member of their Financial Services practice specialising in private equity and corporate banking. 

Michael Bewes

With many years of general management experience in the financial services industry, since joining the Partnership in 1994, he has carried out assignments in insurance, reinsurance, banking, investment, company ratings, compliance, actuarial consulting, the leisure industry, trade/professional bodies, risk management, ART, education, healthcare, government organisations and charities, many at board level, both executive and non-executive.

A Cambridge MA, he is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and a past president of the Chartered Insurance Institute. He was the ‘Master Insurer’ in 2004. He has specialist experience in the application of psychometrics and multiple-assessment at senior management levels.

Helen Crofts

Helen is a qualified actuary and current member of the Council of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. She has worked in the mainstream life insurance, reinsurance and consulting world for over 20 years, both in the UK and Bermuda. She has had a broad range of experience in a variety of roles including pricing and reserving, management, product and team development with companies such as Swiss Re, XL Re and PricewaterhouseCoopers before changing career direction to work in executive search.

She founded and currently chairs The-Women's-Insurance-Net-Work, a membership-based organisation for senior women within the insurance industry, providing a forum for both business networking and professional development via a programme of seminars, conferences and social events.

Dick Hawkes

Dick Hawkes spent the earlier part of his career in Advertising and Marketing, as Board Director of McCann-Erickson and as Managing Director of two Marketing Services companies. He worked with a wide range of clients in sectors including Consumer Goods, Retail and Financial Services, and advised the Organising Committee of the Barcelona Olympic Games on TV rights across the world. A former Chairman of Red Post Production, Dick has also raised finance for small companies from Private Equity firms.

He joined executive search firm Alexander Hughes in 1994, becoming Managing Consultant in 1998. Joining The Willis Partnership in early 2004, Dick focuses on general management, board level and head of function assignments across a range of businesses, and in particular those in the Media and Consumer Goods markets.

Rachel Teodorini

Rachel has been working in executive search since 2005 and has acquired experience of recruiting at senior level across a wide range of private and public sector organisations. With a BSc (Hons) in Herbal Medicine and an early career as a Practitioner in this field, her initial focus was on recruiting communications professionals for the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors. She joined executive search firm Alexander Hughes in 2006 to help build a Corporate Communications Practice for them and at the beginning of 2008 she was appointed Head of Research responsible for the co-ordination and delivery of research in support of executive search assignments across all industry and business sectors. In 2009 she became a Consultant with Alexander Hughes responsible for all aspects of the delivery of executive search assignments, from initial client briefing to completion, with a particular focus on appointments within the financial and professional services sectors. She has been an Associate of The Willis Partnership since 2010. Since then she has been increasingly involved in public sector appointments for senior positions based both in Ireland and the UK in addition to a wide range of private sector appointments in the pharmaceutical, TMT and financial services sectors.

Ian Willis

Since founding the company with a partner in 1979, he has completed assignments in many different fields in commerce and industry in the UK and internationally. He has a particularly deep knowledge of many of the businesses and professional bodies active in the City of London, having worked extensively for clients in the Lloyd's market, the actuarial profession, the investment markets and the insurance company sector.

He spent several years in military service and has an MA and M Phil from Oxford.