Alexis Wilkie
Associate Director, Digital Recruitment
Herd Digital
◎ London, United Kingdom
Associate Director, Digital Recruitment
Herd Digital
◎ London, United Kingdom
Biography
Alexis Wilkie is a specialist digital recruitment leader with 13 years of experience placing senior and executive talent across London's brand and agency market. As Associate Director at Herd Digital, he partners with founders, department leads and internal talent teams on appointments spanning C-suite leadership, managing directors and heads of department, alongside specialist mandates in SEO, paid search, PPC, programmatic, paid media, paid and organic social, digital strategy and client services.
Herd Digital is a specialist digital marketing and data science recruitment consultancy working across London, the UK and Berlin, placing people into digital agencies, client-side brands, publishers and ad tech businesses on permanent, contract and freelance terms. The firm's position is that the strongest digital marketers are already well looked after and will not be answering advertisements, so the majority of its placements come through direct headhunting, referral and recommendation rather than job board response. Alexis works to that model, and to the view that a client should be given a shortlist of the people who are right rather than the people who happen to be available. The work begins before the search does, consulting on market conditions, salary expectation and realistic candidate availability so that a role is winnable rather than left open for months.
His route into the sector came from inside it. He worked agency-side in search marketing before moving into recruitment in 2012, and that grounding informs a practitioner's read of the disciplines he hires for. Candidates are assessed on mindset and cultural fit as closely as on technical credentials, and the measure of success is retention, not placement volume.
Leads senior and executive appointments across digital marketing, working with innovative client-side start-ups, global brands, independent agencies and large network groups, alongside publishers and ad tech businesses. Advises founders, department heads and talent teams on hiring strategy, market conditions, salary expectation and candidate availability before a brief is finalised. Handles mandates from senior specialist level through to C-suite leadership, managing director and head of department appointments. Core focus areas include market mapping, strategic sourcing and direct headhunting, with candidates assessed against both capability and cultural fit and success measured on retention rather than placement volume.
Built and ran the digital marketing desk across permanent, contract and freelance appointments. Delivered bespoke search across SEO, paid search, PPC, programmatic, paid media, paid and organic social, digital strategy and client services for clients ranging from early-stage businesses to global network agencies. Worked to the firm's founding principle of offering honest and open insight into how to find the right candidate or the right role, taking the time to understand the needs on both sides of a brief rather than working to a transactional model.
Worked agency-side in search marketing at a Manchester-based digital agency delivering SEO, pay per click and website design for more than 3,000 small and medium-sized businesses in the UK and internationally. Provided direct, hands-on exposure to the disciplines and day-to-day pressures of the roles Alexis now recruits for, across a wide range of business sectors.
Managed client relationships and performance against key operational indicators within a personal finance environment, advising customers on their circumstances and options.
Nine years in a senior client-facing role at a global banking group, working to defined performance indicators and building the negotiation, listening and relationship skills that transferred directly into a recruitment career.