Company Director

Alastair Singleton is a Scot with passions for enterprise, sustainability and the environment.  After reading Modern Languages at Cambridge University, he spent three years as a police officer in Hong Kong, before joining HM Diplomatic Service.  He spent eight years with the service, with nearly half that time working as First Secretary in the British Embassy in Cairo.Leaving public service in 1986, he completed an MBA at INSEAD in France before becoming an executive search consultant (‘headhunter’) with a start-up firm which quickly came to dominate the UK middle market, with nine domestic offices and joint ventures in Paris and Madrid.  Alastair successfully launched two offices and was latterly Operations Director with responsibility for Quality, Process, HR, IT, Research and Finance.  In 1996 he co-founded Hanover Fox International (www.hanoverfox.com), a senior level executive search firm, together with a sister, lower level, specialist recruiter.  He is currently President of ECI Group, the international federation of independent firms to which Hanover Fox belongs, and he sits on the South West Regional Council of the CBI, Britain’s employers’ representative body.In parallel, Alastair acts as an executive coach and mentor for three early stage entrepreneurs in the UK, and has a range of non-executive and advisory roles.  Broad involvement in the non-profit sector has included seven years as a trustee of VSO, a significant international development charity.  He has recently completed an MSc at Bath University centred on business ethics and environmental issues.Alastair is married to a university lecturer, and has children aged 18,16 and 7.  His interests include walking, cricket, Scotland and writing.