Meet the Team – Nick Speller

Posted on June 2016 By Speller International
Meet The Team5

​Tell us a little bit of Nick Speller history?

Born in London, UK, I graduated from Manchester University with honours in Business. After Uni I set up my first business which lasted 2.5 years until I realised I actually had to pay tax!

I moved on to the UK equivalent of Yellow Pages where I became an Area Sales Manager however I thought things would be better if I could sell IT. Not knowing what a LAN or a WAN or a router was, I went into recruitment “for just one year” to learn all about IT, with the plan to move across to IT sales. On my first day I was ironically given a Yellow Pages and told to make my way through A-Z cold-calling. One of my colleagues turned to me and said “You speak posh, try this SAP thing and see how you go….” It was here that my passion for SAP was formed!

I met my beautiful Australian wife while working in London in 1993 and after we were married in 2000 we migrated to Australia. It was here that I rented a tiny office in Carlton and on my own, with the support of my wife started Speller International in December 2000. I was on my own for 18 months before I began hiring staff, Dara was the 2nd person I hired, followed by Judy and Mary the year after.

And I am a very proud Father to three beautiful children; Edward 13, Christian almost 10 and Stephanie almost 8 who keep life busy and entertaining!

What do you feel are the key achievements of Speller International as a company?

I think the biggest achievement of Speller International is the longevity and “loyal” culture of my staff. I am very proud to boast that 3 out of the first 4 employees at Speller International still work for me today! I believe I have a good ability to recognise the best in the business and I think we have a great culture whereby people want to stay for more than 5 years – which is rare in any profession these days. It can sometimes be a challenging environment but that’s how all families work!

One of the major reasons I still love the business is being able to provide career opportunities for people. And I can count many contractors whom I talked through a junior consultant role, early in their careers, who have remained with Speller throughout middle management and who now hold senior management positions. It has been a privilege to walk with them through their careers and to see what their careers hold next.

And its not just staff and contractors – I am extremely proud to say that our first 7 clients still work with us today!

Speller International has grown from just you to a team of 13 – what parts of the job do you love?

I love getting out and meeting interesting people and I am fortunate enough to have carved a career out of it! Whether it be interviewing a candidate or attending a client meeting, I enjoy listening and learning from our conversations.

We have a strong team environment at Speller and I especially enjoy celebrating our team successes! Our Quarterly and EOFY lunches are such a fun time to celebrate the team’s achievements, but for me they are also an official time to say thank you for everyone’s hard work and dedication.

And of course my favourite date in the calendar is our Speller Christmas Party where I get to say a big thank you to our clients and candidates, having the opportunity to celebrate with everyone we have worked with and for throughout the year!

Where do we find you in your down time?

My downtime is predominately revolved around my 3 children and their many and varied sporting activities. I assist with coaching, time keeping, scoring and giving (often unwanted) advice! As a family we escape to Anglesea most weekends where we love to swim in the ocean, no matter what the weather is like (thank goodness for wetsuits!).

When I get the opportunity I love to read and more recently I have been using acupuncture, meditation and pilates as well as regular swimming to unwind.

What does the FY16/17 hold both professionally and personally for you?

I am adopting a new Management philosophy for the year ahead whereby I stop(!) micromanaging and empower my staff via Judy and our Leadership Team to run the business on a day-to-day basis.

As a company we are evaluating how we might need to adapt to the changes that S/4 HANA and other new SAP “cloud” technologies will bring to the way we resource and recruit consultants.

Personally this year is all about good health and spending as much quality time with my family as I can.