"Winning the awards last year was very special and was shared with the brilliant teams across departments that helped or supported me in some way to implement everything. I'd never entered awards before but to get recognition from TA industry peers who do the same job and appreciate what goes in to it was particularly heart-warming. You obviously go about your day job doing your best, and I know Jollyes valued the work I'd been doing, but to get that external validation was amazing and really worth celebrating. If you're doing great things and making a difference then get your entry in - you just never know, you just might win!"
Nicki's 30 year career spans across early days in agency consultancy with exposure to many different industries as a recruiter, then going in-house in 2004, to work across hospitality and various aspects of retail, from quick service and convenience to more specialist product based businesses requiring a more consultative approach to customer service. Throughout that time, she has developed her skill set from starting with the recruiting element of the role, to the full Talent Acquisition cycle and employer branding, taking hiring managers through the journey of how to recruit and implementing systems, process, recruitment materials, policies and documentation and careers sites to support the candidate experience, hiring manager users and the People team / recruitment admin users.
She currently heads up Talent Acquisition for Jollyes Pets, a national pet-specialist retailer that's growing. Here she has established the TA function from scratch, implemented systems and process and started to expand their employer brand to enable the business to attract the right people to scale at pace, and won Talent Labs awards for TA Manager of the Year and Outstanding contribution & impact in 2025, as well as Jollyes support colleague of the year 2025. Prior to this she headed up TA in Bensons for Beds and before that, was Resourcing Manager for SSP UK. SSP are a global retail hospitality business with multiple own brand and franchised branded outlets across the travel sector.