One of Australia’s fastest growing companies wins prestigious award

Sometimes, the best opportunities come when you step outside your comfort zone. For Robin Jerome, it took migrating to Australia at the turn of the new millennium.

Since 2003 Jerome has flexed his startup muscles, most recently establishing Zeep Medical in 2017 – one of the country’s largest medical employment agencies.

Recognised for being an impressive recruitment entrepreneur, the Managing Partner was named HR and Recruitment Executive of the Year at The CEO Magazine’s 2021 Executive of the Year Awards.

"I feel very honoured and it’s nice to get some recognition for the hard work we do," he told The CEO Magazine moments after winning. "It’s very flattering, it’s a very nice feeling."

However Jerome is no stranger to notable accomplishments. Zeep Medical is home to a number of accolades, including awards that highlight employment satisfaction as well as being ranked among the 2020 Australian Financial Review Fast Starters (for Australia’s fastest growing companies under three years old).

With more than two decades of recruitment experience up his sleeve, Jerome first established the hugely successful Charterhouse Recruitment – an all encompassing agency specialises in accounting, legal, communications, sales and marketing, insurance, rail, engineering and technology. The founder spent almost 14 years at the company, which has gone on to become one of Australia’s largest privately owned recruitment organisations.

Seeking change, Jerome found a niche in the medical field and founded Zeep, a venture that has gone from strength to strength since its inception, growing 400 per cent year on year to 2020.

Striving to become the best recruitment company to work for in Australia, the startup has no doubt felt the ripples of the Great Resignation as well as the firsthand challenges of COVID’s front line.

Faced with some of the most direct consequences of the pandemic, its role in empowering and supporting doctors from graduation right through to retirement has been more crucial than ever.

"Managing a recruitment company through the wholly unpredictable and ever-changing landscape of COVID-19 is not for the weak hearted," Jerome shared in 2020.

Through reducing costs to maintain profitability, which included a number of redundancies, Jerome said the company was able to make fast and decisive action early on in the pandemic.

"Zeep now continues to be positioned as a cash rich, debt free and profitable business to weather the storm, for however long it lasts," he wrote at the time.

And weather the storm it has. Working to match the best employment opportunities with suitable medical professionals through using revolutionary technology, the Managing Partner says it never strays from its core values: putting people first, empowerment, transparency and responsiveness.

Jerome follows in the footsteps of BWX Chief People Officer Ingrid Anderson – a dedicated and brave leader who was named HR and Recruitment Executive of the Year 2020.