Tufnell Park recruitment whiz is millionaire at 27

Young entrepreneur Charlie Walker talks about his success building a company worth �15million in only three years

FOR many people the past few years have been a struggle.

But despite the difficult times, one young entrepreneur from Tufnell Park has prospered – and at the age of 27 is already a millionaire.

Charlie Walker, who lives in Tufnell Park Road, founded his recruitment firm Vivid Resourcing in March 2008 – and now heads a team of 20 at a company he estimates is worth around �15million.

The Yorkshire-born business dynamo, who studied modern history and politics at Oxford University, says his team are the secret to the company’s success.

He says: “The financial climate in 2008 didn’t do us any favours, but I never doubted it was going to be a success.

“I’m lucky I’ve managed to recruit some fantastic graduates and develop them, and they’re really delivering for us.”

It is not the trappings of wealth that drive him, but rather the satisfaction that comes from running a booming company.

“I am relatively money motivated,” he admits. “But I think I’m unusual among people in recruitment, in that my goal is not to have a garage full of Ferraris. I’m quite competitive and I get a real kick out of growing the company. I get a real buzz out of training and developing staff as well.”

Charlie is also a talented musician, who for four years played trumpet in a band with rapper and actor Riz Ahmed, aka Riz MC, star of Four Lions and The Road to Guantanamo.

He said: “I met Riz at university and we had quite a successful group called Confidential Collective, and supported the likes of Roni Size. But I get a much greater buzz out of my work.”

He gave up a �150,000-a-year job in Bristol to set up Vivid and move to London. In the beginning, he was working 13-hour days alone for four months, before setting up a small office in Farringdon.

He says: “I was in an office space with no windows. It was me and about two other people in a four-floor building with enough room for 300, which was about to be knocked down. I was on my own all day – my only human contact was with an elderly cleaner who came in once a day.”

From these relatively ramshackle beginnings the company has gone from strength to strength, and is now housed in a plush new office in St John Street, Finsbury – and is planning to expand by taking on several new hotshot graduates.

He adds: “Our sector has got a really bad reputation, but we’re not interested in your stereotypical cheesy sales types.”