I’m Martin McDermott. I lead recruitment teams, hire executives and help founders put a lasting hiring function in place.
Talk to Martin ↗
For founders scaling after funding or entering a new market.
I agree the hiring order with you, source and assess early candidates, and stay close through offer and acceptance. I put the tools, interview standards and pipelines in place for your first in-house recruiters.
For People leaders navigating a leadership gap or a surge in demand.
I lead the recruitment team, agree priorities with hiring managers and give you a clear picture of capacity and delivery. I coach the team on live work and prepare the handover to your permanent leader.
For CEOs, boards and investors making consequential appointments.
I clarify what the leader must achieve, map relevant people and approach them discreetly. I agree assessment criteria with the panel and guide the search through interviews and offer discussions.
For businesses that need hiring to work consistently across teams or markets.
I review operating models, recruitment technology, processes and reporting. Together we identify where decisions wait, agree who owns each step and give recruiters practical tools to improve delivery.
I’ve spent 25 years in talent acquisition, working in software, FMCG, healthcare, telecommunications, security services and banking. I’ve built recruiting teams after investment, led executive searches and redesigned how organisations hire across countries.
At CAYA Talent you work directly with me. I can sit down with your board to define a leadership role, approach candidates myself or lead the recruiters who will deliver your growth plan.
Challenge. Following Series C funding, a software company needed to hire internationally while building a recruitment function it could run in-house.
Solution. I built a global talent acquisition team to support the expansion and handed leadership of the function to a permanent successor.
Impact. My team supported growth from 540 to around 1,000 employees. The business had an established hiring function in place when the permanent leader took over.
Challenge. The global operations function of a listed global FMCG company operating in 180 markets needed recruitment support across 30 sites. Several sites could need people at the same time.
Solution. I built a team of five TA partners based in Switzerland and Hong Kong and organised their work around hiring demand across the sites.
Impact. The team supported around 180 hires a year, giving the operations function a shared recruitment resource across its 30 sites.
Challenge. A healthcare group operating in 25 countries needed senior leaders, including a managing director and a chief human resources officer for its UK pharmacy retail business.
Solution. I led executive searches across the group, including the searches for both UK pharmacy retail roles.
Impact. I delivered more than 25 senior appointments across the healthcare business.
Challenge. At a private equity-backed investor services group, the CEO and investment partner needed to agree what experience their next Chief People Officer should bring. Few direct competitors had an equivalent role.
Solution. I mapped the competitor market, broadened the research beyond investor services and presented the findings to the CEO and investment partner.
Impact. The research gave both decision-makers a clearer view of the experience available and a wider pool of potential candidates. My wider executive and board search remit also included CFO, regional CEO and non-executive risk roles.
Challenge. A UAE telecoms operator handled 15,000 applications a year. External hires took over 120 days, and candidates and hiring managers needed more consistent communication throughout the process.
Solution. I implemented an applicant tracking system that gave both groups updates at every stage. Candidates could see where they stood and what came next. Hiring managers could follow progress and see when a decision was due.
Impact. Time to hire for external candidates fell to 45 days. Candidate advocacy improved and hiring manager satisfaction rose. Oracle’s regional team featured the implementation in a case study, and the project won a regional award for HR technology implementation.
As Global Head of Talent Acquisition for a private equity-backed investor services group, I built a global TA Centre of Excellence and developed a team of more than 50 TA professionals supporting 25 countries. Over the course of the transformation, the group doubled its global headcount. My team supported that growth by helping leaders decide where to hire, building capacity in delivery centres and bringing acquired businesses into a common hiring process.
Challenge. Hiring managers typically came to recruitment with an approved vacancy and a request for CVs. By that point, they had often already decided where to hire and when they needed someone to start.
Solution. I brought TA into workforce planning and introduced Power BI reporting that combined hiring forecasts, recruiter capacity and talent-market intelligence. Recruiters could advise leaders on where the skills they needed were available, how long hiring was likely to take and which roles to prioritise.
Impact. Leaders could test their hiring assumptions before committing to a location or timetable. TA became an active partner in deciding how the business would deliver its workforce plan.
Challenge. Recruitment capacity sat within individual countries, while hiring demand shifted across borders. Some markets needed extra support for a major project or a peak in vacancies.
Solution. I introduced cross-border TA support and moved routine administration into shared recruitment operations. Local recruiters retained responsibility for sourcing, assessment and advice. I also worked with embedded TA partners and global recruitment process outsourcing providers to cover peaks in demand and provide dedicated teams for strategic hiring projects.
Impact. I reduced TA headcount in higher-cost locations and redirected recruitment capacity to the markets that needed it. Across the global function, recruiter productivity increased and total TA spend fell, even as annual hiring more than doubled.
Challenge. The group’s plan to meet its EBITDA targets depended in part on moving work into delivery centres. Those centres needed enough people in place to take on the work.
Solution. In 2023, I led recruitment for the launch of a global capability centre in Hyderabad, India. Alongside that launch, I led hiring for the expansion of the established Philippines operation and supported recruitment for the group’s delivery centre in Mauritius.
Impact. My team supported Hyderabad from its first hires to a workforce of 1,000 people. The Philippines operation added more than 800 full-time equivalents. That capacity enabled the group to move work into its delivery centres and helped it achieve its EBITDA targets.
Challenge. As businesses joined the group, their recruiters and hiring managers needed a practical way to adopt group-wide processes and explain to candidates what the combined organisation offered.
Solution. I introduced a global recruitment playbook, hub and academy to develop recruiters and help new colleagues put the process into practice. I also led the employer brand programme and the global launch of the employee value proposition, giving teams a common starting point for candidate conversations.
Impact. TA supported the integration of more than 10 acquired businesses. Recruiters could draw on a shared account of working for the group and use their local knowledge to explain what it meant for a particular role. Across the wider transformation, candidate Net Promoter Score reached +80.
Challenge. Shortening the time from vacancy approval to offer meant understanding where decisions sat, how work passed between teams and which tasks took recruiters away from candidates.
Solution. We mapped each step with recruiters and hiring managers, agreed who owned each decision and redesigned workflows around those responsibilities. The programme included global adoption of SmartRecruiters and the Workday go-live in November 2025. We also introduced a custom recruitment chatbot and a GPT for the TA team to handle recurring questions and administrative tasks.
Impact. Time from vacancy approval to offer fell significantly. Recruiters had more time for candidate assessment and hiring managers had a clearer view of the decisions they needed to make.
Tell me about the appointment, leadership gap or change you have in mind.
Talk to Martin ↗hello@cayatalent.com