Sharing our journey…

Women working together achieve great things and become the rising tide that lifts all boats.

This is the ethos that two founders held at the heart of their decision to form boutique executive search firm Williams Hall. Dianne Williams and Helen Hall created the business with talented people aligned around common values, enabling them to achieve more when all hands pull together.

“It’s not about work at any cost. It’s about finding a balance that respects you can have flexibility with where you work, when and with whom,” said Helen.

Williams Hall identifies executives who’ll make a meaningful impact in the leadership teams of their clients, typically emerging and evolving businesses. This means Helen and Dianne work with inspiring leaders every day. They see great leadership as a mix of smarts, capability, empathy and compassion, and aim to bring these qualities to work every day.

They operate as an extension to their clients’ talent teams, working in true partnership to identify candidates and match them to opportunities.

And its culture-first approach extends to every engagement. “Cultural fit is critical for success. Great leaders who don’t fit the organisation’s culture can’t optimise or deliver positive impact,” said Dianne.

Getting started

Both Helen and Dianne forged successful careers, stellar reputations and extensive networks in their respective fields before becoming business partners. Helen’s background is in media, marketing and events. That gave her a deep understanding of the machinations of businesses, commercial pressures and how to connect and engage teams. Dianne has extensive experience in executive search built her reputation on providing high-impact talent for her clients.

“We wanted to create and build a business that sat firmly into our values and combined the momentum from our careers,” said Dianne.

When they started the business, Dianne and Helen worked with talented specialists to articulate and capture the why, who and how of Williams Hall.

“We were humbled by great encouragement from within the executive search sector and from our clients. Looking back, it’s amazing to see what we achieved so quickly and with such terrific support,” Helen said.

Anchored in value

Williams Hall's core values are courage, curiosity and tenacity. For Dianne and Helen, business courage isn’t always about being big and bold, it’s also being vulnerable. They show up daily for themselves, their colleagues, clients and candidates. And they do this at home, too.

They’re both working mothers, each with three children.

“As a family, we talk about giving everything a red-hot go, instead of watching from the sidelines. I encourage my children to take risks, and felt it was time step courageously forward, back our individual experience, expertise and success, and in doing so, back ourselves to establish Williams Hall. As mothers to teenage daughters, the opportunity to role model courage, persistence and smart strategic thinking was not lost on us,” said Helen.

“Curiosity is critical for our business. It’s the fuel of our business, to seek out, uncover, question and seek to understand.”

Tenacity is the discipline their team brings to work every day and keep going no matter the conditions. Williams Hall works with clients to solve senior, critical and complex talent requirements, the ‘hard to find’ or the ‘highly specialised’ leaders. Being tenacious ensures clients and candidates always have a great outcome.

Nurturing talent

With an eye on the future, Helen and Dianne continue to see their clients making diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) and sustainability a priority.

“More organisations are seeking commitment from their leaders to improve DEI, seeking leaders who role model and lead the desired change across DEI and seeking leaders who can implement bold solutions to achieve positive change,” Helen said.

At the board and executive levels of their clients, sustainability is an integrated, collaborative and considered approach to business.

“Our resources aren’t endless, and we need to create and maintain a healthy balance to ensure we don’t compromise the needs of future generations,” Dianne said. “Williams Hall is so privileged to work with clients as they build and create their sustainability leadership teams.”

Helen and Dianne are excited about the potential to shape this critical function. There is top talent working hard to solve complex problems in a myriad of organisations, and the momentum around sustainability is extraordinary.

Williams Hall applies a lens of sustainability to its own business, too, putting planet and people above profit. Helen and Dianne always planned on sharing their success to make a positive impact on others and are motivated to give back to kids that need help.

The partners were resolute in their decision to support The Smith Family through the Pledge 1% movement when the business was formed. Via The Smith Family, Williams Hall currently sponsors 14 children to get to school and stay there, and as their business grows they look forward to increasing the number of children they sponsor.

Helen and Dianne believe education is critical to building future leaders, living their values and genuinely helping to rise the tide to lift every boat.