Our board

Chairman and Chief Executive

James Reed CBE

James Reed is the Chairman of Reed in Partnership and Reed – Britain’s biggest and best-known recruitment brand and the largest family-owned recruitment company in the world.

James is a regular media commentator on work and labour market issues, with recent appearances including BBC News, Sky News, BBC Radio 2 and The Apprentice. He has contributed insight to a wide range of publications including the Financial Times, Harvard Business Review and the Sunday Times.

James is also a best-selling author of three books, The 7 Second CV, Why You? 101 Interview Questions You’ll Never Fear Again and Put Your Mindset to Work, which he co-authored with Dr. Paul Stoltz.

He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). James lives in London with his wife Nicola and their six children.

Managing Director

Donna Murrell

Donna was appointed as Managing Director in 2023. She had previously served as Operations Director since 2014.

Donna is passionate about delivering high quality public services that meet and exceed the expectations of customers and commissioners. She ensures that performance targets and quality commitments are achieved through data-led evaluation and continuous improvement of services, creating a high performance culture and finding solutions to evolving customer needs.

Donna is interested in the science of behaviour change and this led her to obtain a Master's degree in Cognitive and Decision Science from University College London.

Director of Business Development

Carla Alexander

Carla develops and implement the company’s business growth strategy.

Carla has worked at Reed in Partnership since 2011 and has a track record in leading complex tendering opportunities, supporting the diversification of the company in the last 10 years. With experience in both operations and business development she works across all our divisions on growth opportunities. Carla was appointed to the Reed in Partnership Board in 2018. In her career prior to working here, she worked for charities and third sector organisations including as Director of the Family Mosaic Housing Association Community Foundation. Carla has a first class degree in Geography and Sociology from the University of Leeds.

Operations Director

Shirley Allen

Shirley started with Reed in Partnership in 2008 and has worked in a variety of operational management roles. She spent five years leading the Innovation and Change Team on a range of complex service implementation and improvement projects, before moving into the role of Reed Assessment Division Director in 2022 to lead over 800 employees operating from Reed Assessment’s UK Test Centres.

Shirley was appointed Reed in Partnership's Operations Director in 2023. Her role includes developing our operational performance across the UK to meet the needs of our commissioners and customers and leading a high performance culture that encourages innovation, collaboration and continuous improvement in all that we do.

Finance Director

Steven Beggs

Steve joined Reed in Partnership in 2007 initially focused on overseeing claims processes, revenue accounting and reporting before broadening his remit to include supporting the commercial analysis of new business opportunities in 2009.

Appointed Head of Finance in 2011, Steve's role was expanded to include the full range of financial management activity for the business before assuming the role of Financial Controller in 2013. Steve was appointed to the Board as Finance Director in 2017 and oversees Reed in Partnership's Finance, Business Intelligence and Contract Management functions. Steve is a Chartered Management Accountant having qualified in 2006. Prior to joining Reed in Partnership Steve worked for several medium to large manufacturing organisations in accounting roles.

Director of People

Tom Millar

Tom has worked for Reed in Partnership at Board level since 2002. Currently he oversees our People and Learning & Development teams. Tom's operational delivery expertise spans the commercial recruitment, employability and skills sectors. In addition, Tom has set up and managed a number of successful joint venture companies in the education, business support and international trade sectors – with responsibility for sales, service delivery and client relationship management.

After graduating from the University of Exeter with a Law degree, Tom worked as a qualified solicitor for almost ten years before choosing to join the Reed Group in 1997 as People & Quality Director. He has held a wide variety of different Board level roles since then.

Director of Business Excellence

Patrick Widdowson

Patrick joined Reed in Partnership in 2018 and was added to the Board of Directors in 2019. He has over 20 years of experience working in services across a range of roles including mobilisation and project management, compliance and risk management and operations and supply chain management.

Patrick has overseen the mobilisation and transition of new public sector contracts across both established and new markets with Reed in Partnership, including the simultaneous implementation of Reed in Partnership’s largest employment programme and a national network of Test Centres in 2021 - together, establishing over 200 new offices in an 18 month period. His strategic risk management leadership has enabled Reed in Partnership to meet the highest commissioner requirements for security and compliance, including becoming SOC II compliant and introducing a new security regime for the Test Centre network.