John Hassall
During this period, John gained invaluable knowledge and experience of dealing with a wide range of challenges frequently encountered by business leaders when running and operating small to medium-sized businesses (SMEs).
In 1995, John joined Legal & General (L&G) to gain experience of the corporate world and spent the next ten years climbing the ladder from Sales Manager to Regional Director. During this time, John learned all about the systems and controls required to run a PLC and gained an enormous amount of sales management experience leading and directing local, regional and national sales teams.
In 2005, John decided to leave L&G and return to his SME roots. He accepted a role as a director of a medium-sized estate agency based in Sheffield, which was sold two years later to one of Europe’s largest estate agency groups.
In 2008, John joined Talk Ltd (incorporating Mortgage Talk Ltd) as their Chief Executive Officer. Over the next five years, he led the development and growth of this organisation, which became one of the largest mortgage brokerage businesses in the UK with 150 sales people and annual mortgage lending of £1bn. The mortgage broker business was acquired in March 2012, at which time John sold his equity stake and, after overseeing a successful transition, left to form JRH.
Supporting businesses with growth challenges
Many businesses come to work with John after reaching a crucial decision point. Helping businesses to navigate the crossroads they are facing is a skill which John has honed over his many years of experience working with SMEs and business owners.
The decision could be whether to grow the business, hire new staff or regarding succession planning. There are often challenges relating to staff issues and time management which John is able to assess and provide actionable advice which works to solve the problem and prevent the issue from arising again.
In recent months, John’s work has revolved around crisis management relating to the COVID-19 pandemic and supporting business through the most challenging times they have ever faced.
John is highly skilled at getting to the root cause of any problem and identifying what needs to be done to move past it and to thrive. It’s this ‘outside looking in’ perspective which has enabled John to get great results for his clients and why they ask him to continue to advise them as a trusted partner for the long term.
