After the dotcom boom and bust, many of the IT sector's recruitment firms either closed or diversified. Not so Penta: it chose to beat the downturn through global expansion and, since 2000, it has built a network of wholly-owned offices in France, Norway, Austria and Dubai, as well as establishing strategic partnership offices in China, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Canada, the US, Mexico, Brazil, Tunisia and Algeria.

And Penta isn't stopping there: managing director Paul Clark and sales director Richard Wilson are continuing their global rollout from Wallington in Surrey with the development of new operations across the Middle East, the Americas and Asia Pacific.  These offices aren't just dots on a map, either. Using the downturn as an opportunity to get closer to its key clients, Penta has both followed and, in some instances,
anticipated the moves of key clients both technologically and geographically - including Alcatel, Cisco, Siemens, Ericsson, Nortel, Motorola, 02, Cable and Wireless, as well as IT divisions for JP Morgan and public sector clients. Penta has put an amful lot of time, money and thought into its network of offices, too: it offers specialist tax and work compliance information; has established local currency ledgers to facilitate financial transactions; and worked with governments, notably in restricted currency markets such as China, to ensure that its venture has the necessary backing.

It's also worked incredibly hard to look after the people it places. A multi-lingual logistics team in the UK takes care of all the different aspects of redeploying contractors around the world: flights, hotels, work permits, visas, car hire, medical and other insurance, security arrangements and office facilities. The workers get advice on climate and culture. There's a same-day international payment service for
contractor emergencies. And Penta doesn't forget about its candidates once it's placed them: there's an on-going career development programme and a consultant responsible for identifying future projects and developing skills. Penta's solution to skills shortages overseas inevitably
includes parachuting in contractors, but it also aims to identify and train the best local people so that, longer term, its clients benefit from a skilled local workforce.

All that hard work has paid off. In 2003 it was the fastest growing recruitment company in the UK in our annual Hot 100 and, in the year to April 2005, turnover doubled to £30m, all of the growth being organic, with a 400 per cent growth in international turnover. And it's done all this while keeping staff recruitment in check: employee numbers are up from 49 to 73. Penta has held on to key employees, too, helping pre-tax profits to increase more than tenfold, from £60k to £l.lm, with margins on gross profits (a better measure of sales in the recruitment market) above the industry average, at over 20 per cent.