Guided by the light
“I have always wanted to be a ‘good’ man.
For me that’s being a great dad and husband – someone his family can be proud of.”
Interview: Sue Wilcock / Martine Silkstone, Essex Director Magazine
Pictures: Warren Page, Pagepix
Gerard Francis talks to Essex Director
From selling sweets on the school bus, to Founder and Director of the Colchester-based recruitment company, Lighthouse Personnel, Gerard Francis has come a long way on his entrepreneurial journey, but it has not been an easy ride. He has had to overcome a series of personal and professional challenges to get where he is today.
His rollercoaster history includes the highs of an adventurous childhood on the coast, the lows of a parent’s mental health struggles, the highs of love at first sight, and the lows of running a people-based business during Brexit and Covid.
His is a story of family, fortitude and faith (more on that later), but – spoiler alert – it ultimately has the happy ending he always wanted.
Looking back, he says: “I feel like there was a much more straightforward plan for me, but I chose to take a different, more complicated path. Fortunately, I found my faith again in the end, but it was a bit rocky for a while!”
Throughout those years navigating the harder route, his core ethos nevertheless remained the same – to just be a good person and help others.
His faith may not have always been at the fore, but its basic message was.
And today, that ethos is the foundation of his business. From the very beginning, Gerard set up his company to change the money-focused culture of recruitment; to work with integrity and always put people first.
“We have always been a values-based business,” Gerard explains. “We try not to let money dictate decisions and instead, we do what is best for the long-term benefit of everyone we work with. In short, every decision we make is based on simply doing the right thing.
“We focus on quality over quantity every time and I will really try and advise our client as to whether a candidate is right for the role. It might mean I’ll lose a placement, but that has often benefited us in the long run, because if we get it right they’ll come back, and we’ll build a relationship based on trust. That’s where success lies for me.”
Now seven years old, Lighthouse has achieved more than 400 placements and has been named as one of ‘Three Best Rated’ recruitment agencies in Colchester*.
Doing the right thing works, it seems.
And despite it having been a tough few years, through the impact of global politics and the pandemic, that fundamental truth remains at the heart of everything they do.
“I don’t talk about it much, but I want to do things better because I have a faith and I’m going to make sure I live up to those ideals. It isn’t a sales pitch, but I want to be held accountable.
“It’s really just about living and working with honesty and integrity. Yes, I love running a business – forming a strategy, planning budgets and trying to ensure we hit our targets – but at the end of the day, I just focus on treating people well because good stuff happens off the back of that.”
Where it all began
Gerard was born at Colchester General Hospital in November 1988.
The youngest of four, his mother was a childminder and his father a policeman and keen rugby player. Both were also practising Catholics and raised their children in the church – perhaps the start of Gerard’s own faith journey.
Growing up in Harwich, he enjoyed a youth full of fresh air and physical activity, often playing football on the beach or canoeing from the shore. There are also tales of jumping off the lighthouse into the water – tombstoning – but it’s probably best not to go into that!
“We did quite extreme stuff because dad got us into it,” Gerard recalls. “He was a big, wild character when I was young, always the life and soul of the party. I had a really good relationship with him and my childhood was fun in lots of ways.”
However, while he has many lovely memories of growing up on the coast, there was a darker undercurrent to life throughout this time. Alongside all the boisterous outdoor pursuits, he was also a young boy living through his father’s struggles with mental health.
Diagnosed as bipolar, his dad attempted suicide when Gerard was just 12 years old.
“I came home from school one day and he was in the loft where he had tried to take his own life,” he remembers. “Because he heard me come in, he took himself to hospital for treatment, but that was hard. We were always really close.”
His dad survived but went into an extended period of depression, and while things eventually improved, life as a family was never the same again.
Growth and transformation
During this already difficult time, Gerard was facing many challenges of his own.
With the family having moved to Colchester, he was now away from his friends and beginning high school at St Benedict’s Catholic College in the city. At home, while his dad was unwell, the new house required extensive renovations, his mum had started a new job, and his older siblings were moving into their own property back in Harwich. Meanwhile, dental problems led to major oral surgery which, along with his other “quirks”, made him an easy target for bullies.
“I had no teeth and a few other unfortunate facial features,” he grimaces. “I was always picked on because I had a lot going on physically and emotionally.”
Some tricky formative years, indeed.
Fortunately, as he reached Year Nine, things started to settle down. By this time, his teeth had grown, he had a better haircut (his own words) and he was generally starting to feel more confident having now made some good friends.
Alongside his lessons, he was earning pocket money by selling sweets and Pokemon cards on the school bus – already showing signs of being a natural entrepreneur – and at this stage he was planning to join the police or become a film director. He was also a keen footballer, following Liverpool FC and playing regularly for the school team.
By the age of 14, it’s fair to say that he had literally and metaphorically found his feet. With everything going on at home, high school was now his “safe place” and he loved his time there.
Lessons learned
Leaving school at 16, Gerard enrolled at Colchester Sixth Form to study ‘Film, Media and Drama’ – but he soon dropped out. His parents were now divorced and he left education to start a landscaping business with his dad who was still in need of support.
Only once that was established, was he finally ready to forge his own path.
He moved to Ipswich where he rented a flat with his brother and a friend. Looking for work, he applied for a job as a Christmas temp in retail and was offered his first ever interview. It did not go well.
“Even though I’d worked since I was 12, I had no idea what to say or how to present myself,” he explains. “I turned up in a tracksuit and a hoodie, and I gave one-word answers. Obviously, I didn’t get the job.”
Fortunately, he had his older brother, Joe, to help him.
At the time, Joe was working at an insurance call centre in Ipswich, and he offered to refer Gerard for a role in telesales – but there was a catch. Joe would buy him a suit for the interview but only if he prepared properly.
“He spent a few evenings with me, going through the job description and role-playing questions and answers. I couldn’t believe that was a thing! It really opened my eyes and I think that’s where my interest in recruitment began, knowing that there were good people going for jobs but failing at the interview stage.
“Of course, I got the job. Then Joe got a referral bonus so he got paid for the suit anyway,” he grins.
Gerard soon became a top performer in the company and for the next couple of years, he enjoyed the rewards of his labours – living in Ipswich, going out, playing football with friends and settling down in a steady relationship with a girlfriend.
He had even begun to rediscover his faith, when a tragedy changed everything.
Finding a way through
Just as things were going well, Gerard received the devastating news that his girlfriend had experienced a severe, life changing medical event. In the difficult months that followed, Gerard moved back to Harwich and offered support where he could but, eventually, the relationship came to an end. Devastated, he blamed God and turned away from the church once more.
Now 21 and still looking for his path, Gerard moved to a new role organising apprenticeships at a national training provider.
“I loved working with young people and giving talks in schools,” he says. “I quickly got promoted to Recruitment Consultant, then I won ‘Salesperson of the Year’ for the company in 2012.”
A football injury also left his Sunday mornings free and, encouraged by his father, he started to attend church again in Colchester. This is where he first saw his future wife, Rosey.
“She was singing in church and I turned to my dad and said: ‘I want to marry that girl one day’ – it was genuinely love at first sight.”
However, the timing was not quite right, and for Gerard, London was calling.
Moving on up
In 2012, having found success in his role, Gerard was promoted to a management position for the training company – but it meant a move to the city. Living with friends in Stratford, he was soon managing teams in Hampshire, Berkshire, Essex and London, while also enjoying football and all that London had to offer.
“I was living the city life – you eat out, you go clubbing, then you fall into bed. I really embraced it,” he smiles.
Then he got back in touch with Rosey through Facebook, and they started dating.
“At this point, I was having a great time but getting burnt out,” he recalls. “I always wanted to be a family man with a sensible, stable life and I thought this girl could actually be my true path.”
Nevertheless, for a while, Gerard was considering a potential job opportunity in Australia – then they unexpectedly found out Rosey was pregnant.
So, with the job overseas now off the cards, Gerard moved back to Ipswich where he could support Rosey while continuing to manage his teams from the Suffolk office. He also resumed playing football for a local team.
Their son, Micah, was born in August 2013 and not long after, the couple realised they were meant to be together.
“We became really close friends during the pregnancy and then, after Micah was born, we just knew we wanted to be a family,” Gerard says fondly. “It was a long time coming but we got there in the end.”
Soon, Gerard proposed by laying a trail of clues that led back to their home where Micah was standing in a t-shirt that read: ‘will you marry daddy?’. Of course, Rosey said ‘yes’, and they married on August 22, 2015. It was the happy ending he had always wanted and fatherhood renewed his faith in God.
It was time for a fresh start.
Next steps
Having been in his training role for more than five years, Gerard then moved to a healthcare agency. There he re-launched their Colchester branch, with a focus on providing quality temp staff in the healthcare sector. Though it was hard in many ways, he says he loved the work because everyone involved was passionate about helping people.
He went on to launch the Ipswich office and in early 2017 was awarded ‘Business Centre Manager of the Year’. As Manager, his responsibilities now went beyond just sales, and he was using all the skills he had gained over the previous years to confidently lead his team.
So why not use them to run his own business?
Indeed, Gerard had always planned to be a director by the time he was 30 – but in what sector? He always said he would never do permanent recruitment because it was too cutthroat, but it suddenly occurred to him that maybe he could do it differently.
“It’s usually all about getting a bum on a seat and a placement fee as quickly as possible, but I knew it could be done better. So, I thought: why don’t I do it?”
When another football injury saw him out of play for two weeks, it seemed the perfect opportunity to put together a business plan. Rosey, studying to be a Chartered Accountant, was on maternity leave having just welcomed their daughter, Pippa, and she agreed it was the right thing to do.
In December 2017, Lighthouse Personnel was born – named for the lighthouse that featured so prominently in his childhood, as a representation of guiding people in the right direction on their career journey, and for the religious symbol of God being a light in the darkness.
Starting out
Building the business upon their shared Christian values, they started out from a small desk in the baby’s room. Despite the informal setting, Gerard was still using the professional tools he had learned in his previous roles. Each morning, he would email himself a ‘roll call’ of his plan for the day – phone number list, chores, etc – and reply when he finished with all he had achieved.
“That kept me on track,” he says. “It was my way of making sure I’d stay motivated.”
The business grew quickly and by month two, they were already making money. Within a year, they became a team of five and moved to the Colchester Business Enterprise Agency where they had access to support and advice – a valuable asset as they sought to navigate through the uncertainty of Brexit when clients had paused all hiring.
The business was still struggling with these effects when Covid hit and everything shut down. Many of the placements they had recently secured were now redundant and they lost three months’ revenue along with everything that was in the pipeline. All but wiped out, they were about to serve notice on their office when the government announced a grant for business premises, along with an invitation to apply for a bounce back loan. This was to sustain them during the recruitment shutdown.
At home, they had now become a family of five having welcomed a second son, Llewie, in November 2019, so life was still busy. Gerard took a part-time job with a retail company for additional income, then saw an opportunity to help those now unemployed due to the pandemic. Using LinkedIn, he offered his professional services free of charge and helped write CVs for anyone who needed to get back into work. He also held online workshops on job application and interview techniques, and arranged a virtual speed interview day with large, local employers.
He says: “COVID was so awful, we just wanted to do what we could to help. It really is the whole ‘pay it forward’ thing; just thinking about how to give back and be proactive in a difficult time.”
As things started to open up, it became clear that his altruism had not gone unnoticed. He was nominated for an REC Award as ‘Covid Champion of 2020’, with many getting in touch to say: ‘you clearly live the values that you talk about – we’d like to work with you’.
Post-Covid, business was booming. Gerard enlisted Peter Basford as his Business Coach and says that this move was “transformational” for both him personally, and for Lighthouse Personnel.
Rise and fall
With things going well and the team growing, Lighthouse Personnel moved to new offices in Langham and enjoyed a good period of success – but it wasn’t to last. The cost-of-living crisis was looming and soon companies put a pause on all hiring once again. Work “fell off a cliff” and for the next year things were really hard.
By 2024, their team of seven had become three, but they formed a strategy to “ride it out”.
“Last year we said, right, let’s just steady the ship,” Gerard explains. “Let’s keep building good relationships and looking after our clients and it will pick up again. In the future, we will grow again, but we need to make sure that, even if times are really tough, we are better prepared.”
Part of that involves specialising in new sectors, including a new collaboration with Sarah McKee-Harris who has recently launched Lighthouse Executive – a separate company that deals with senior hiring and personality profiling. Now, they share ideas, processes and costs, working hand-in-hand to offer a full range of services.
Extra-curricular
Of course, Gerard still offers his skills and knowledge to help in schools, and he gives talks on how to write a good CV and interview well. His own experience fuels his passion for helping young people avoid the mistakes he made. That in turn ensures employers don’t miss out on hiring raw talent.
“I think there’s a few issues with the recruitment process. There might be an amazing candidate who misses out because their CV is not good enough, or an employer who misses a good candidate because of a bad job description or interview process. There’s a talent to recruiting talent! We can help with that.”
But it’s not all about work…
Gerard loves spending time with his family in the woods, at the beach and playing sport. He still plays and coaches football, and Ipswich Town FC is now the family’s team. Settled in his faith, he can often be found volunteering at church or for youth groups, and he will be helping out at the summer camp later this year.
Life may have been a rollercoaster, but whether it is his faith or simply an innate positivity that has seen him through, he has finally found his path.
So, what’s next?
“Now we have finished steadying the ship, it’s about deciding on a long-term strategy for the future. We are excited about our recent move to our new home at the Essex Innovation Centre and will be utilising the support on offer to help with our next steps.
“More personally, I’ve had a mental shift over the last six months and I want to make sure that I am doing things that are right for my family. Our children are growing up and I need to be there for them. Those years were very difficult for me, and I want to make sure that they’ve got dad around if they need him.
“I have always wanted to be a ‘good’ man. For me that’s being a great dad and husband – someone his family can be proud of. That was what I dreamed of as a young boy and now I finally have that chance.”
*https://threebestrated.co.uk/recruitment-agencies-in-colchester
