
Meet the team
Founder & Managing Director
Jessica Jakins
In 2024, Jessica and Ann, founded Ad Idem Search as part of the Ad Idem Consulting Group, with an aim to complement their existing offerings in the market.
Jess brings with her a wealth of experience following 6 years on the Board Practice at Eton Bridge Partners, where she focused on placing c-suite leaders and board members on a global scale. Jess has always had a sector agnostic approach and excels in thinking outside the box. Advising clients with challenging searches is one of her key strengths, as is her insight to market conditions due to her broad background at all levels of senior leadership. She has a thorough understanding of different ownership structures, having worked with Private Equity and their portfolio companies, AIM, FTSE, NYSE and NASDAQ listed businesses.
Prior to joining Eton Bridge, she spent 10 years working in luxury travel and tourism, initially with Quintessentially in a PR and Communications role, before the travel bug kicked in and she embarked on 8 years of living and working across Europe, running operations teams for well-known ski companies. During this time, she also worked as a chef in Switzerland, Austria and France in private households and luxury ski chalets. Upon returning to England, she joined a boutique tour operator as a Sales Manager, before going on to run an investment floor for a global Asset Management firm.
Her diverse background has given her enormous insight into the way people think, communicate and interact, helping her to really get to know clients and candidates alike. Her aim for Ad Idem Search is to ensure that culture is key and that everyone she works with is truly supported and looked after.
Jess grew up in London and Devon and in her spare time enjoys travelling with her husband and finding great new recipes to recreate at home. The bucket list of travel destinations in growing by the day and at some point she hopes to embark on a global food and wine tour.


Founder & Group CEO
Ann Radford
Ann has had a highly successful international career spanning 25 years in interim executive search.
After graduating from the University of Oxford, her recruitment career started at one of the world’s largest global HR and recruitment firms and she became a prolific biller and highly respected Director in both the permanent and interim space.
Having built her reputation among Senior Management within SMEs and Private Equity clients, as well as internationally listed organisations across all hierarchical levels of finance and project management, clients now reach out to Ann when they or their portfolio companies require specialist interim talent.
Ann’s hands-on approach to recruitment is consultative and she understands that not only is experience important to a role, the culture and personality fit are equally as vital and can often mark the difference between success and failure. Her raison d’être is to make the recruitment process fun and hassle-free. She will always give an honest answer and maintain an open dialogue with clients and candidates, some of whom have been with her for many years.
Ann is also a fierce champion of female empowerment as her Ad Equality brand testifies, and she mentors young female financial services graduates in her spare time.
As well as continually looking for new business ideas and initiatives in her work life Ann’s other major passion in life are her two girls – Daisy and Tilly keep Ann busy with swimming and cricketing passions. Outside of the workplace, Ann loves to walk and has recently taken up running. She is also a keen writer and has a half-written novel which may get completed one day even if it’s in retirement.