The CEO of healthcare recruitment company TTM, which has announced 500 new jobs over the next five years, has committed to continue pushing for job creation in the region.
Brian Crowley has confirmed that all of the new jobs announced will be Irish based, with 75 of those set to be created in Clare. The company currently employ 80 staff at its headquarters in Ballymaley and there are plans to expand the workforce at the site. There will also be jobs created in the resilience care sector of the company, providing outreach, respite and residential services for children and adults with disabilities and home-based services for people with complex medical needs. There are currently 20 people working in this sector in the county.
Following this week’s jobs announcement, Mr Crowley told The Clare Champion, “I am extremely proud to be a Clare man. When we are sitting at the boardroom table and looking at where our expansion is directed, I am consistently having my County Clare hat on. I would be hoping to push, where possible, jobs here. That can be a challenge as we grow internationally. We have offices in London, Berlin, partners throughout Europe. There is pressure at times when talent is sometimes more plentiful in places like, for instance, London but I plan that we will continue to push the Mid West.”
Mr Crowley said he was “thrilled” to announce the new jobs, which comes after the acquisition of a 30% stake in the business by Irish private investment company Broadlake.
He confirmed, “All 500 will be Irish based. A bulk of them will be commissions, nursing professionals, social care, support workers and health care assistants for our resilience care business. We will be expanding a number of residential centres across the country, equally we are hoping to develop some step down units across the country.
“We are targeting certainly jobs for County Clare. At the moment we have about 80 people in Ballymaley and another 20 in resilience care. We anticipate probably another 75 jobs being created in the next five years. Ennis at the moment provides shared service support for our domestic and international business and we are looking to expand further.”
He pointed out, last year, out of all of the nurses who joined the NHS from overseas, one in five were from TTM. “The majority of that is managed from Ennis,” he added.
He said the company has no plans to leave their Ballymaley Business Park headquarters. “Space is the challenge. The plan is to continue to grow in the Ballymaley Business Park. I, and we, are very happy there. I started there with a small office downstairs, the yellow pages and a mobile phone. We’ve grown significantly in that building. We think we are going to have the option of further development in Ballymaley from within the existing infrastructure.”
He concluded, “We are very excited to partner with Broadlake, given its remarkable track record in scaling up services businesses. I look forward to working with Pete and the wider Broadlake team to meet current and projected future needs. TTM has grown rapidly in recent years and this investment will help the company to reach new heights in terms of both expanding the team and our service offering to clients. We can see huge opportunities for our business to scale over the next five years. The World Health Organisation has indicated that demographic changes in most western European countries are leading to an older population with more complex medical needs while, at the same time, fewer young people are choosing healthcare careers.”
TTM, headquartered in Ennis, is recognised as one of Europe’s leading specialist recruiters of healthcare staff with offices in Dublin, Cork, the UK, Germany and Poland as well as a large network of international partners across Europe, Africa and Asia.
Currently employing over 1,200 healthcare professionals, TTM Group has turnover in excess of €50m and has a strong international footprint with over 50% of its business occurring outside of Ireland. 52% of revenue in 2015 was generated from divisions established since 2011, highlighting the speed of growth in recent years.
Broadlake has invested over €30m into seven dynamic entrepreneurial businesses headquartered in Ireland and the UK and has a proven track record in growing and scaling international businesses. These investments include the office services business 2468 Group, the skincare brand Vita Liberata, the manufacturing business Conveyortek and the premium shower enclosure brand Merlyn.
Broadlake will support TTM’s strategy to triple revenues and double the workforce in the next five years through a mixture of organic and acquisitive growth, enhancing its range of services and further extending its international reach.
The business will continue to be led by founder and CEO Brian Crowley and MD Barry Pactor. As part of the investment, Pete Smyth, CEO of Broadlake, will join the TTM board. Mr Smyth ran the support service group Noonan from 2003-2008 overseeing a period of unprecedented revenue growth from €65m to €125m, while also doubling the workforce to 5,500.
Mr Smyth noted, “We have been hugely impressed by our interactions with Brian Crowley, Barry Pactor and rest of the team at TTM. We only work with the most dynamic entrepreneurs to help grow great businesses. We knew from our early interactions that the team at TTM fits into that category. What attracted us to TTM is the quality and ambition of the team, the innovation of the healthcare services it offers and the high standards of care that TTM provides to both its patients and customers.”
A native of Ennis, Colin McGann has been editor of The Clare Champion since August 2020. Former editor of The Clare People, he is a journalism and communications graduate of Dublin Institute of Technology.