Australia was thriving - changing of the guards and a NEW brand!

By 2004 Retailworld had really taken off and it didn’t show any signs of slowing! 

The business had expanded to three New Zealand offices in Auckland Wellington and Christchurch. John was growing  Australia at a rapid rate too.  First came Melbourne in 2004 followed by South Australia and Queensland, a flagship agency in Sydney then completing the Australian agencies with ACT and Perth.

One of the most exciting times of this phase of our businesses life was creating a stand-alone specialist recruitment agency for the Hospitality Industry.  Hospitality recruitment had been managed as a dedicated desk within the Retailworld business, managed by two talented recruiters - Anna Miles and Rick Bidgood.  They specialised in QSR, Food Retail and Chef recruitment, looking after the likes of McDonald’s and Pizza Hutt and building our recruitment services into the Hotel industry. Anna and Rick pitched launching a stand-alone brand to relate specifically with the thriving, vibrant, niche hospitality industry - they put forward a strong case to John and Trish, it was signed off, and Hospoworld was born! 

Hospoworld has gone from strength to strength, expanded its market reach and recruitment capability and has grown to recruit a range of positions across the hospitality and tourism sector.  Today the Hospoworld team spans Australia and New Zealand with 6 offices providing specialist recruitment services and promoting careers in Hospitality.  

After operating in a fast-paced start-up mode for many years, Mike decided he was ready for a change of pace and decided to move on.  Ben Harman came on board as a partner, Ben had been a client since the business's early days and was excited by the opportunity to join our driven business and step into an entrepreneurial role. Retailworld had a number of successful years with Ben before he decided to move back into the corporate world.  From 2009 Trish and John settled into a rock-solid trans-tasman partnership. 

RWR Group now has 9 Retail and 6 Hospitality and 2 Health specialist recruitment agencies across Australia and New Zealand. Although it wasn’t always smooth sailing, the GFC was right around the corner and the business as Trish and John knew it,  was in for a rough ride.