http://justwomen.asiaone.com.sg/news/women/20070509_001.html
Woman Warriors:
Julia Ross single-handedly builds her HR empire By Cynthia Loh - May 9, 2007 AsiaOne
Julia Ross, in her early 50, is a single mother who built a human resources empire from scratch.
Starting with nothing but her savings, she started her eponymous recruitment company in the 1980s, sourcing contract workers for secretarial and administrative positions for other companies in Australia.
Today, Julia is the chairman of Ross Human Directions, a human relations resource organisation that is listed on Australia’s stock exchange and is worth A$400 million with 50 locations around the world.
She is also Australia’s richest self-made female entrepreneur.
She tells us her rags-to-riches story:
"Before I started Julia Ross, I ran a construction business. Then I walked into a recruitment company one day looking for a job, and they persuaded me to join them! That’s how the switch occurred.
But I decided to leave because they were not very female-friendly. I did not find out I was pregnant until I had given up my job. I decided to start my own business instead of applying for something else, because it meant that I would have to tell my next employer, and they would not have given me an executive role because of my pregnancy. I had experience in the industry and that training made it easier for me to start out.
I started off in 1988 with the Julia Ross label. We had a very female organisation and we supplied many secretaries and receptionists, call centre and different types of female staff.
In Australia, it was very much a boys' club, so it was good to strike out on my own, although there were many hurdles. When I first approached the bank for a loan, they were not interested in lending me money mainly because I was a female. Although I have been dealing with the same bank and I was operations director of a global organisation, and had already proven my credentials to them, they still did not want to take a risk on me. But I don't have any difficulty now!
Julia RossThere are lots of movies that glamourise being a working mother. Meg Ryan always looks fabulous, and she has a child on each arm, with a laptop over her shoulders and always looking gorgeous. It does not work like that.
My early days taught me a lot of discipline. I sold whatever possessions I had and raised enough money to start the business. It taught me to be really careful with cash. Unlike some business owners who borrow a lot of money to go into business, I had very limited funds and was very cautious from the start.
Part of our business is contract-based. I had to pay the contract workers for the periods they worked and then wait weeks for my clients to pay me, so that was a big drain on cash.
At times, I worried that I would run dry and fretted over how the workers would feel if I could not pay them that week. That was very, very difficult. I had to learn how to generate income from other types of business like permanent recruitment so that I didn’t drain all the cash, and still generate enough money to pay the contract-based workers on time.
There were many times when I had to stay up until 2am to check the books. Many times, I would work out how many weeks I had left before running out of cash. For the first few years, and certainly during periods of strong growth, it became more difficult. The more successful we were sometimes, the more this drained our cash because there were more contract workers to pay upfront.
It was good discipline though. It taught me to run the company very well from a cash point of view and now we still have a very strong balance sheet.
It was a big learning curve to become a true business person. From just having to go out and talk to clients about recruitment services, I learnt about business in total - what drives a business, how to manage an organisation and make sure that I get the best value out of my purchases and create the correct margins out of what I am charging.
Make sure that the equation works or it is no use being in business if you are not making a profit.
As the group grew, we went into different types of recruitment - accounting, lega - different areas of recruitment. Since then, we've purchased a few other companies like the Spherion group that took us into IT recruitment, and into other countries like Singapore and Hong Kong. We also opened our London, Dublin and Edinburgh offices and other places like that.
We look forward to turning over almost $400m next year; so it is a much more significant organisation obviously.
We have been going now for nearly 20 years, and are a very diverse group, doing everything from office support recruitment, specialist recruitment, IT recruitment, but also technology solutions, payroll, outsourcing, and manage training services. So we can go to a client and offer a full service. It is all about managing talent and bringing a total solution to the client.
In the first few years, I won a major contract with the government and then a major contract with a telecommunications company. Those two things were probably our very first large contracts and took the company from probably turning over $50 million to probably over a $100, $150 million.
That also allowed us to go to other organisations and demonstrate our capability, particularly the telecommunications contract because it was a national one. We could go to other clients and say this is what we can do for you. Those clients were very important to the foundation of our business.
You have to build a relationship first and start supplying some contractors and some permanent placements to clients. Show them your capability. Then you have to demonstrate that you have innovative ideas and that you are the best option and make sure you have relationships that are very strong with all the people in the organisation.
I have got great management that do a lot of the running of the company for me. I could not do it without them. There are about 500 staff who directly work in the organisation, and we have thousands of contracted workers.
I think most would say I am firm but fair. If you want to run a business very well, you have to have high standards. If you are going to say near enough is good enough, then you will not have an organisation that you are proud of. But if people want to put in a very good effort, then I will reward them very well. People will stay with you for a long time if they feel that they are being developed to work at the highest potential that they can realise.
I have the philosophy in business that you do only what you can do, so I try not to get involved in trivial tasks. If I can delegate it, I will. You can then cut your time down significantly, because you do not get involved in minutiae.
We listed in September 2000. From a business point of view, it was probably the highlight of my career. Not only is it the only female organisation to list in Australia, but I was a single owner, so it was quite unusual.
I did not think about listing on the stock exchange until a couple of years earlier. But yes, I have always wanted it to be a global organisation. There were a lot of people who said I would not be able to do that, and many people who put plenty of hurdles in my way.
But it felt awkward for me to have sole responsibility, what with the size we were growing to. There were different ways for me to go.I thought of the various options and listing on the public stock exchange looked like the best.
As an entrepreneur, I have to say it has been very challenging since becoming a public company. In retrospect, I do not know if that is what I would have done. I might have done it later perhaps when I was going to retire, rather than run a public company, because it does come with its challenges.
My most difficult times were when my son, James, was very small. He was not the best sleeper in the world. In the early stages I was getting up at night and working during the day. I used to go home on a Friday night and make sure that I would always stay home with him till Monday morning and do nothing else but spend time with him. When I was unable to go and serve biscuits in school or things that other mums do, I have made speeches while James came along and listened to me.
But I got through that. The greatest thing for me is that James is now very proud of what I have done, and I feel very lucky that we have an exceptionally close bond. Some women say they miss not being with their children when they were small. There is a degree of truth in that. But for me, I am very close to my son, so I did not really miss anything at all.
There are lots of movies that glamourise being a working mother. Meg Ryan always looks fabulous, and she has a child on each arm, with a laptop over her shoulders and always looking gorgeous.
It does not work like that. You cannot be a fabulous mother, a fabulous lover and a great business person.
There aren't enough hours in a day. Unfortunately there are compromises to be made sometimes, and all you can do is be true to yourself and decide what is really important to you and try to balance that.
It is important to have knowledge of the type of business which you want to start, and make sure you have enough finances.
The biggest downfall that new businesses face is that they run out of cash.
Know the industry intimately, have a good business plan, understand where you are going and have enough cash for the journey."
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