James Lea to establish a Society office in the Asia-Pacific region

We are excited to announce that on February 23rd, James Lea, who currently heads up our Hospitality and Leisure practice, will be relocating to Auckland to open an Australasia office for Society.

Simon Lucas, Society's Managing Director, commented:

"James is the perfect colleague to lead this new venture. He has been a vital part of the firm for over seven years, and successfully established our New York office in 2015. He also has strong links to the Southern Hemisphere by virtue of being married to a New Zealander and having lived and worked in Sydney for several years earlier in his career."

Further developing our footprint in the Asia-Pacific region has always felt like an important next step for us as a global search firm. We have a solid foundation of work in the region, particularly across the Hospitality sector and the Higher Education sector, where our clients include the likes of the Peninsula Hotels and the University of Adelaide. But our significant cross-sector expertise means that there is huge potential for growth. We have a vast array of connections across Schools and Colleges, Not-For-Profits, Retail, Consumer Goods, Healthcare, Finance, and the Arts, that we are eager to build upon."

James began Society's US business as a 'one-man show', eventually growing it to the point where we were able to second colleagues over to New York and then ultimately hire a team of locally-based US colleagues to lead it on an ongoing basis. Society US now works with a broad and diverse range of clients from its established office in Manhattan. We are confident that we can see similar growth in Asia-Pacific.

After a year in which much of the world has closed its borders, and international travel has largely ground to a halt, we are proud that Society's horizons will be getting a little bigger, and that we have this exciting opportunity to open our doors in a new region.