Brian Crowley, TTM Group

A "recently exiled Clare man living in Dublin", Brian Crowley is the CEO of TTM Group.

In his younger years, Brian represented Ireland in boxing at youth, junior and senior level.

Having narrowly missed out on qualification for the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, Brian completed his studies with a degree in WIT and went on to begin his career in human resources and recruitment.

He joined a small recruitment company in Ennis and in 1999, was sent to Maastricht to set up a European resourcing centre for professionals with various European language skills.

After the dot-com crash in the early part of the noughties, Brian advised his then managing director to look at the healthcare market and Brian subsequently set up the healthcare recruitment division. At 25, he left to set up TTM Group.

TTM Group consists of an international healthcare recruitment company, TTM Healthcare, and a health and social care service delivery provider, Resilience Healthcare. The group has grown from one employee to almost 1,000 permanent and temporary staff, and will generate close to €40 million revenues this year.

How did you secure your first investment? My original start-up capital of €25,000 was a combination of a very flexible credit card and a very, very loving father. I gave my dad the option to take shares or the full repayment and a holiday as the return on investment in year one. That trip I sent him on to Morocco ultimately has saved me a fortune considering that we are on target to generate €40 million in revenues this year.

What was your "back-to-the-wall" moment and how did you overcome it? Towards the end of 2010, through a combination of aggressive pricing strategies by our competitors and a public tendering process for a significant volume of our business, revenues plummeted by 60 per cent.

I made the decision that we could never put ourselves in the position again of having such a significant exposure to one large customer. Reacting swiftly we expanded our recruitment business into the UK, Germany and the Middle East and also launched Resilience Healthcare.

As a result, we doubled our group revenues between 2011 and 2013 to just under €30,000,000.

Were there any interesting or unusual circumstances surrounding the inception of the company or its evolution? I can't think of anything unusual. But the luckiest break of my life came from the fact that I met my wife having recruited her as a social worker for the HSE just before I set out on my own.

She sent in her CV a short time after I set up TTM asking me if I remembered her when I placed her with the HSE. It’s probably the most unprofessional act of a professional recruiter but I asked her in for interviewing, knowing I had absolutely no suitable roles available. Shortly after our interview I asked her out, and, well, the rest is history.

What sacrifices have you had to make to get your business where it is today?

My sacrifices over the years are dwarfed by those made by the people around me.

It’s a very challenging role for the partner of an entrepreneur. The long days and the stress that goes with growing and running a business can be as tough on the family as it is on the individual.

Delayed gratification in terms of a personal return can be difficult, not just for me but for those close to me who are wondering when the pain will be replaced by Prada.