Upon graduating from the University of Nottingham in the UK, I joined PwC in London to gain my accounting qualification. This was motivated by a desire to move into a general business environment and continue to learn new skills. However, I soon found out that the world of accountancy was not for me. After a brief secondment to the corporate finance team, I left PwC in 1996 and joined a UK recruiter called Badenoch & Clarke, again in London.

My first role in recruitment was within a team focusing on financial services and I learned a great deal in my early years in the London market. The environment was competitive and I was lucky enough to have an excellent mentor who taught me some of the valuable basic principles of effective recruitment.

In 1998 I joined Michael Page in Hong Kong and enjoyed seven years with the company. During this time, I managed the financial-services team, along with a brief stint overseeing the legal team. This experience was again invaluable in shaping my knowledge of recruiting in the Asia region and across a broad-based financial-services environment.

I founded Profile Search & Selection, together with Richard Letcher, in May 2005, and the past seven-plus years have been an extraordinary experience. On a day-to-day basis I am responsible for managing both the financial-services practice and the business as a whole. However, I am still very active in managing candidates myself.

The team at Profile Search & Selection has expanded since its launch and we now have offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai and Beijing. We have been fortunate enough to work with outstanding colleagues during this time and the core of our team has been with us for the majority of the journey. We firmly believe that the strength of our business is the culture we and our colleagues have created.

Andrew Oliver is a co-founder of Profile Search & Selection and has lived and worked in Hong Kong for over 14 years