Global executive recruitment firm Elevate Executive Selection is to expand in Bermuda.

The company is adding a senior recruiter to its staff next month and envisages increasing its employee count further by the end of 2016.

The improving economy in Bermuda and a more positive outlook is part of the reason for the expansion.

Elevate has an office in Victoria Street, Hamilton, and another in Dublin.

“There is a positivity. Companies are saying they are going to hire people. I’ve seen how the mood has changed and I’ve been blown away by it,” said James Fitzsimons, Elevate director.

“There’s been a real fillip from the America’s Cup, there’s an upbeat feeling,” he said. Elevate has picked up a number of recruitment requests in its latest round of meetings with companies.

Sylvia Jones, director of Bermuda operations, pointed to the success of the ILS (insurance-linked securities) sector in Bermuda and the Island’s drive for Solvency II equivalence with the European Commission as being among the factors that are “pushing businesses and the demand for new resources”.

The company provides international executive search and recruitment services, and has worked with leading financial, insurance and legal companies, including Allied World, AIG, Hiscox, PwC, Aspen and HSBC Bermuda.

Where a company is seeking a specialist talent, Elevate can identify potential executive-level candidates living overseas or on-Island. The firm offers a relocation package to ensure executives are “smoothly settled on-Island”.

Elevate also assists individuals who are leaving Bermuda to find opportunities and resettle overseas.

Ms Jones has ten years’ experience in Bermuda, and founded Corporate Concierge Bermuda, a firm that supports companies and individuals who are moving to or from the Island.

Dublin-based Mr Fitzsimons previously built two recruitment businesses in Ireland before creating Elevate in 2011. Last year he and Ms Jones linked up to expand Elevate to Bermuda.

The pair have complementary skills. Ms Jones has extensive experience helping executives to relocate in Bermuda. She and her staff have worked with a host of insurance, reinsurance and banking firms to provide relocation support for high-level employees.

She explained this service includes ensuring would-be recruits have a comprehensive understanding of what relocating to Bermuda would mean so that they can make an informed decision about whether such a move is right for them. The firm then provides support for new arrivals as they settle in.

Ms Jones said the concierge service started to evolve when a number of companies began asking for help to find people to fill executive roles.

“They said ‘you know the kind of people we need’, and they asked if we could help them,” she explained.

“That led me to find a partner to contribute that level of experience.”

Having worked for 25 years in the field of bespoke recruitment, Mr Fitzsimons fitted the bill.

Speaking to The Royal Gazette, Ms Jones and Mr Fitzsimons said there has been a marked uptick in the mood of business leaders on the Island, which has resulted in more requests for recruitment assistance, and hence the need for Elevate to expand.

“In the space of 12 months it has gone from a mood of the glass being half empty, to the glass being half full,” said Mr Fitzsimons, explaining that the change in perspective was an important one.

“People are positioning. They are saying they are going to hire,” he said.

Elevate Executive Selection has just launched a Bermuda website at www.elevateselection.com