Our Story

James O’Dowd, then a young graduate and entrepreneur, founded Patrick Morgan in 2015

For the firm’s first few years, he acted alone balancing his fledgling career as a business owner with time on the wards of the Royal Stoke University Hospital as a medical student. Soon enough, he took the decision to focus solely on his career as a headhunter and began to assemble a team to support the impressive growth of the business. Using his relationships across EMEA and the US, James built a strong pipeline of projects within Strategy and Consulting, with plans to expand into Private Equity, Tax, Legal, and Transformation.

In only a couple of years, the firm hired its first ever employee, then established its first office in London Bridge, quickly building to a team of five and strategising on future hires. We built up a small, yet vital client base and developed a cross-border track record of senior placements and market analysis projects.

Patrick Morgan Foundation

As the team grew, we laid the groundwork for what would become the Patrick Morgan Foundation, capitalising on our knowledge of the job market to support school leavers in their quest for productive careers. Through our in-person careers workshops, digital platform, and thought leadership, we continue to lobby for better outcomes for under-represented young people.

Meanwhile, the search business developed exponentially

As a group of budding search consultants, we have established a lengthy track record of successful placements, diversifying our area of focus via Investment Banking, Private Equity, and Consulting Boutiques. We created Patrick Morgan Insight, a complete offering that covers market insight, forensic referencing for candidates, and compensation benchmarking, acting as in-depth consultants to our clients. Through these close connections in the market, we are also thought leaders in our areas of expertise, writing consistently about the most pressing issues in the consulting ecosystem.

Now, coming off of a record-breaking year, we have even bigger plans to grow

With plans to add to the team significantly in the coming years, we outgrew our initial office and set up camp in the vibrant Canary Wharf. Going forward, we’re working closely with our partners to integrate our advisory services into our Executive Search function, open more offices globally, and bring more people into our team under James’ leadership, who continues to steer the business with our principal values at heart.

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