Many authorities are now seeking more commercial talent and attitudes in their organisations as they try to do more with less. We focus specifically through our recruitment, to transition private sector candidates to the public sector. What our clients really want, of course, is commercial nous with public service values.

From my six years of working at Penna I know this is possible. We are a recruiter with personality, which means we operate as a collaborative team, with strong commercial knowledge, personal conviction and commitment to the public sector.

For example, I wouldn't be in this job if I didn't win work, but I achieve this by focusing on my passion for improving public services.

Given that we work with elected members and chief executives to appoint to the top roles and then support organisational people trans-formation, we are able to see the impact our work has made on local communities, partners, businesses, operating models, and workforce cultures. This drives my and our success.

I can think of places where our work has helped to transform locality and organisation – through recruitment of new modern leaders who work together to change a place for the better. Our commercial thinking is genuinely enabling public service outcomes.

The bottom line, in our experience, should never be the top priority, for the private or public sector. In our experience, values drive success.

Yvonne Skingle is director at Penna

yvonne.skingle@penna.com