Against a backdrop of a worldwide pandemic and economic uncertainty The MCG Group has opened a South African office. The opening will see eight team members come to the company rising to twelve in due course.
Colm McGinley, CEO, explains the company’s focus on talent plays an equal part in continuing the business’ success: “Our value proposition is simple, we are All About Great People – we only work with great clients, great candidates and we only employ great consultants. This ‘people first’ attitude teamed with our steadfast appetite to exceed our ambitious goals is enabling us to bounce back from the pandemic’s impact in a stronger position.”
Grant Henderson, COO of The MCG Group, says the new realm of online and remote working opened up new business ideas to the group’s board of directors, allowing them to think outside the box of the traditional methods they’d enjoyed success with to date: “During a business review, the very remote idea of looking at offices abroad was born. We looked at various options but an obvious location for me to investigate personally, was the country where I grew up, South Africa.
“As soon as we started to look at how things might work, we quickly realised all the benefits,” he says. “The schooling system, customs and culture, grasp of the English language and time zone all align very well with us here in the UK. There are also many highly skilled and hard-working people who are in a tough job market and are very keen to engage with an international brand such as ours. We also knew that as our business started to grow again in all its sectors, we could effectively and efficiently add headcount in South Africa to increase our capacity and support our UK businesses.”
The MCG Group appointed Brett Duncan as director and shareholder of the South African business. With his own recruitment business in South Africa and connections to source talent, Brett has been instrumental in working closely with the UK-based board to ensure solid governance of the business on the ground. Following a rigorous interview process Marc Feher was hired to lead the business from start-up to fully functioning team and to set up the new office in Umhlanga, Durban North.
Marc was born and raised in Durban but had the opportunity to work internationally holding leadership positions in investment, pharmaceutical, marketing, hospitality and outsourcing markets.
From starting the month of January with only Marc as a full-time hire, the new office has entered February with eight new staff members with plans to have 12 people by the end of March.
Marc Feher, country manager of The MCG Group said: “In a relatively short time, we have established a fully functioning business with exceptionally well qualified employees. Brett and I are both firm believers that our vision in South Africa is to create a service excellence hub that outperforms all expectations for the Group. The goal is to be able to support all channels and divisions of the Group and create strong, sustainable relationships with UK divisions from top to bottom, whilst giving opportunity to a large pool of well qualified South African candidates.”
