Our Team

Experts in building senior leadership teams

Our consultants, ranging from digital industry veterans to young high-flyers, share a passion for helping innovative businesses flourish, and an unwavering commitment to client service.

Meet some of our Search Team.

Clare Johnston - CEO & Founder

Stephanie de Wangen - Director

Anca Condrea - Director

Lydia Shepherd - Director

Danielle Ward - Director

Niekie Jansen - Director

Jorge Mascarenhas - Director

James Burrows - Director

Sarah Noyce - Director

Thomas is a Senior Consultant at The Up Group.

Prior to The Up Group Thomas was a Researcher, leading board and c-suite searches in the Government and Housing Practice at Odgers Berndtson. He holds a BA in Business Economics from the University of Exeter.

Thomas Andrews - Senior Consultant

Yana is a Senior Consultant at The Up Group.

Prior to The Up Group, Yana was a Senior Associate at Leathwaite (a boutique executive search firm) where she sat within the Commercial and Digital practice. She worked with a broad range of financial services clients, covering banks, fintech and payments firms, insurance firms and private equity backed businesses.

Prior to joining Leathwaite Yana worked at IBM Deutschland in Global Marketing, while completing her degree in International Business and German at the University of Birmingham where she achieved First-Class Honours.

As well as possessing experience of working overseas, Yana is a keen linguist and fluent in English, Ukrainian, Russian, and German which helps her deliver across a broad spectrum of international search mandates

Yana Skobeleva - Senior Consultant

Eon is a Senior Consultant at The Up Group.

Prior to joining The Up Group, Eon was legal counsel at Balderton Capital, the European technology focused VC fund. At Balderton, Eon was responsible for advising on the fund's early-stage investments into technology and internet companies and managing the fund’s portfolio of c.100 companies. Prior to Balderton, Eon was a corporate lawyer at two US corporate law firms where he advised clients in the VC and PE ecosystems, with a particular focus on the technology and life sciences sectors.

Eon graduated with a MA (Hons) in French and Politics from the University of Edinburgh. Eon also holds the Certificat d’Etudes Politiques from l’Institut d’Etudes Politiques in France as well as a Legal Practice Certificate and Graduate Diploma in Law from BBP in London.

Eon has dual French and South African citizenship, is a native English, French and Afrikaans speaker and is proficient in Spanish.

Eon de Quelen - Senior Consultant

Domagoj is a Consultant at The Up Group.

Prior to joining The Up Group, he was with another boutique executive search firm where he worked on the CFO assignments across PE backed and corporate landscape. Domagoj previously spent more than five years in the Global CFO Practice of Korn Ferry in their Vienna and London offices. There, he worked on behalf of a variety of organisations including large global corporations, European public companies, FTSE listed businesses and Private Equity backed organisations across multiple industries in the UK and abroad. His work has involved board level CFO appointments, divisional/ regional finance directors, as well as group financial controllers, tax, treasury, investor relations and other finance roles.

He holds a Master of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Cologne in Germany. Besides his native Croatian, Domagoj is fluent in English and German.

Domagoj Landher - Senior Consultant

Ricky is a Senior Consultant at The Up Group.

Prior to joining Up, Ricky spent over four years at contingent recruitment firm Harvey Nash where he worked in the permanent technology infrastructure team within the Finance and Banking Practice. 

Ricky graduated with a B.A. in American Studies from the University of East Anglia.

Ricky Isaacs - Senior Consultant

Alice is a Consultant at The Up Group.

Prior to The Up Group, Alice was a Consultant at Hinton Rose, a boutique search firm. During her time there she specialised in placing Investment Professionals in special situation funds across debt and equity. Preceding this she was at Sanderson, sitting in their Executive Search team in both Bristol and London. She focused on C-suite searches in the financial services space, specifically within pensions and asset management.

Alice graduated from the University of Bristol with a BA in History.

Alice Rooke - Consultant

Lucy is a Senior Associate at The Up Group.

Prior to The Up Group, Lucy was an Associate at True Search, part of the True platform; a global suite of products and services driving the intelligence behind talent management. During her time there she specialised in placing Product & Engineering leaders into VC-backed start-ups and scale-up businesses globally. Preceding her time at True Search, Lucy worked at a boutique firm focused on the European technology and digital ecosystem.

Lucy graduated from the University of Durham with a BA in Theology.

Lucy Baker - Consultant

Charles is a Senior Associate at The Up Group.

Charles has a focus on senior level, go-to-market searches for B2B SaaS companies with PE and VC backing.

Previously, Charles worked with investor-backed companies on their go-to-market leadership searches in Europe and the US with Erevena before joining The Up Group. He led searches within the SaaS b2b scale-up tech arena.Charles also has experience placing mid-level individuals in the Payments, Fintech, and Retail Banking sectors through contingent recruitment.

Charles Daker - Senior Associate

Emma is a Senior Associate at The Up Group.

Prior to The Up Group, Emma was a Research Director within the GTM Practice of Renaissance Leadership, a boutique technology executive search business and worked with a range of high growth VC and PE Backed B2B SaaS businesses across Europe on senior leadership hires.

Prior to Renaissance, Emma worked at two other leading executive search businesses focussing heavily within the technology and digital space. She also previously worked in Paris in a start-up and is a fluent French speaker, having studied French at the University of Warwick.

Emma Lemont - Senior Associate

Sharon is an Associate at The Up Group.

Prior to The Up Group, Sharon was a legal intern handling legal research and client assistance. Afterwards, she took on a role as a client relationship manager and marketing assistant, working on maximising profits and revenue, developing marketing campaigns, and improving sales and market strategy across a global platform. She has a growing passion for technology, specifically UI/UX design.

As well as gaining experience working overseas, Sharon has lived in several countries and as a result is fluent in English, Spanish, Igbo and Tiv.

She holds a BSc in Sociology from Aston University, Birmingham.

Sharon Aondo - Associate

Johnnie is an Associate at The Up Group.

Prior to The Up Group, Johnnie was an Operations Executive at a renowned school letting solutions start-up company.

He holds a first-class honours degree in Psychology from the University of Bristol.

Johnnie Edmondson - Associate

Lizzie is an Associate at The Up Group.

Lizzie graduated from The University of Oxford where she read French and German. During her time at University Lizzie spent a year living in Paris. She worked as an Events Associate in an NGO for rare diseases and as a freelance translator for a theatre production company.

Lizzie Borg - Associate

Ayesha is an Associate at The Up Group.

Prior to working at Up, Ayesha was introduced to the world of recruiting and talent acquisition at DiverseJobsMatter as a Talent Acquisition Executive – where she worked with a variety of NGOs, Legal Firms and Banks to recruit for a variety of key roles including Managerial and C-suite roles. She was appointed the role of Team Leader where she honed her business development skills, DE&I strategy and interviewing skills.

Ayesha graduated from City University of London with a Psychology BSc where she researched a plethora of topics including diversity in the workplace.

Ayesha Sheikh – Associate

Isabel is an Associate at The Up Group.

Prior to joining, Isabel worked at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris on the Literacy Team of the Youth Literacy and Skills section, helping the section facilitate literacy programmes through regional and country offices as well as global events in Paris.

Isabel recently completed an MA in International Political Economy at King’s College London and holds a BA in History from King’s College London.

Isabel Heikkila – Associate

HOLD

“Good management of the process, with strong market knowledge”

— Esure

“The team were 100% focused on getting us the right person”

— Wallapop

 

Meet some of our Operations Team

Victoria is the Head of People overseeing people strategy ensuring the company continues to invest in its unique culture of collaboration, growth, and development. Victoria leads the People Team and is responsible for talent acquisition, L&D, employee engagement, culture, and advising the group on HR policy and best practice. Victoria is passionate about people and growing talent from within while ensuring business goals are supported through strategic business initiatives.  

Victoria brings over 13 years’ experience from the executive search industry. Prior to joining The Up Group, Victoria established an executive search company, which focused on emerging and high growth markets within financial services. Before that, she spent several years working in global and boutique executive search firms.

Victoria holds a CIPD Level 7 Diploma in Human Resources Management. She graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Sports Psychology and Coaching Sciences from Bournemouth University.

Victoria Welham - Head of People

As L&D Business Partner, Gemma supports our search practitioners and delivers The Up Group’s client quality assurance process. Gemma is passionate about people, today she is focussed on supporting our team in achieving its full potential through designing and delivering group and one-to-one training and coaching. She works with our People Team to ensure Up provides an environment in which people can learn, thrive and achieve their goals.

Gemma brings over 14 years’ experience as an Executive Search practitioner, trainer and coach, having joined Up at its inception and held a variety of externally and internally facing roles. As a search practitioner she worked extensively with VC, PE and listed businesses, bringing deep digital expertise and industry knowledge along with extensive experience in helping companies scale and transform.

Gemma holds an irrepressible thirst for all things psychology and learning related. She has a certificate in Counselling Skills and is currently undertaking a diploma in Psychodynamic Counselling. She has also completed the Co-active Training Institute’s foundational coaching training course, Co-Active Fundamentals, and holds a Level 5 TEFL qualification in Teaching English as a Foreign Language. Gemma graduated with a First Class Honours BA (Hons) in English Literature from the University of Reading.  

Gemma Hale - Learning and Development Business Partner

Becca is the Senior HR Advisor at The Up Group supporting and partnering with the Head of People to help achieve Up’s strategic people objectives. She looks after the full employee life cycle, including onboarding and offboarding of employees, HR operations, employee benefits, talent acquisition, and assists on internal HR projects.

Becca has over six years’ HR experience, having previously worked in property and financial services. Becca has a strong generalist background and has a passion for HR operations and analytics.

Becca graduated with a BA (hons) in Drama & Theatre Practice from the University of Hull.

Becca McKillop - Senior HR Advisor

Mitchell is the Events Manager for The Up Group.

Mitchell is responsible for all roundtable events and provides full 360 support during the planning and delivery of The Up Group’s entire event slate. Mitchell also works across Up’s content creation remit, producing various short and long form content for social media and our website.

Mitchell moved to London from Australia in 2022 where he gained significant event management experience in the retail industry, previously leading a team in running events for up to 900 people. Mitchell holds a BA in Psychology from the University of Melbourne

Mitchell Ainsworth - Events Manager

Jo has been Financial Controller at The Up Group since April 2021. As Financial Controller, Jo supports the CEO and wider business on all aspects of finance including key financial strategic decisions, presentation of monthly and annual reports to senior stakeholders, preparation of annual budgets and quarterly forecasts, and review of monthly financials.

Prior to joining The Up Group Jo worked for Alexander Mann Solutions for a number of years in various roles such as; Assistant Group Financial Controller, Finance Business Partner and Management Accountant.

Jo graduated from Heriot Watt University with a MA (Hons) in Accountancy and Finance and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Ireland.

Jo O’kane - Financial Controller

As part of the Finance team, Max is responsible for managing the day-to-day financial operations within the company, preparing monthly and annual reports for Board members, and supporting the development of long-term strategies.

Prior to The Up Group, Max worked for a number of years as the Finance Manager for a start-up business operating in the retail sector.

Max is a member of CIMA and holds a BA (Hons) in Business Management from Oxford Brookes University.

Max McKendrick - Finance & Operations Manager

Eleanor is the Front of House and Office Manager and sits within the People Team. She is responsible for a five star guest experience for all clients and candidates, as well as, the smooth running of the office. Facilities management is part of Eleanor’s remit covering fire, heath and safety and, building management.

Prior to joining The Up Group, Eleanor spent seven years working as a Senior Customer Service Administrator across various industries.

Eleanor graduated with a BA in Tourism and Sports Management from the University of Gloucestershire. Eleanor is also a qualified ski instructor and has completed two ski seasons in Canada.

Eleanor Boyle - Front of House and Office Manager


“Good counsel, great communication, candidate quality exceeded expectations – please do not change anything!”

— Vectra