About us

Biography

Yvonne’s path into Engineering was started by a savvy physics teacher in High School who got her involved in “Insight to Industry” and “Women in Science and Engineering – WISE” during the sixth form. She was successful to win a hotly contested engineering sponsorship with Ford Motor Company and graduated with honours from Brunel University, England in 1995 in Mechanical Engineering.

So, upon graduation, she joined Ford where she worked in a number of Powertrain and Vehicle projects in product development, testing, manufacturing planning, production, vehicle launch team and program office. During this time she travelled extensively especially to Europe, India and Eastern Europe and saw the inter-relation of all business functions of the company in cross-section. It was to prove a very valuable learning experience.

In 2000, she left for a new product innovation at Federal Mogul as Program Manager and was swiftly transferred to Delphi when the technology was acquired. During the period of business transition, she stepped in to fill the void that had been left by the absence of having no HR department onsite. What started as an interim measure became more permanent and she handled all personnel issues for the team of 50 for a period of four years.

Meanwhile still responsible for engineering, she headed up a global Chassis project collboration team for a major OEM; receiving a Leadership award (2004) from Guy Hachey, President Delphi E&C for turning around a loss-leading venture into a highly profitable business line.

In 2004 Yvonne launched her own project of a more personal nature; her son was born, soon followed by a daughter in 2006, after which she chose not to return to work immediately, but to enjoy motherhood for a while. When she began planning for her return to the work force in 2007 she realised all of the front line engineering management positions required candidates who work long hours, travelling to suppliers and corporate locations; not compatible with the work life balance of a mum. However, not accustomed to defeatism, Yvonne instead realised a personal ambition to create her own business. Purple Squirrel recruitment consultancy was incorporated in 2008. The firm’s USP is the ability to tailor a recruitment solution specifically for the benefit of the Engineering Manager founded of course from her own substantive experience of leading successful engineering teams.

While getting ready for the venture, she studied for and achieved a Certificate in Recruitment Practice from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation. Today the Purple Squirrel is a full Corporate Member and works through a network of international engineering associates to source talent globally, with the full range of recruitment tools to deploy for the benefit of engineering companies. Yvonne is especially interested in recruitment issues on the topic of Diversity and Graduate Development having had many of her own first hand experiences.

Today, Yvonne's key focus is on riding out the recession and in growing the success of her new business. Her vision is no less ambitious, she is full of the drive and determination that made her stand out before - perhaps more so because now this is personal.