She may be one of Australia’s best-recognised businesswomen with an eponymous group of enterprises turning over more than $75 million annually, but there remains no doubt as to what or who is driving Sarina Russo’s success.
When you start your own business from scratch, old habits die hard, and with good reason. Russo’s recruitment business began with the simple idea of offering free job placement for graduates of the typing school she started in 1979 to escape her job as a legal secretary. Her business grew steadily but had a major coup in 1998, when the federal government outsourced the role of its job agency, the Commonwealth Employment Service. Russo won the tender to own and operate 31 offices around Australia to run the service which now employs more than 800.
Inevitably, expansion of The Sarina Russo Group into several businesses has meant passing on much of the responsibility for the day-to-day business to adept managers, but Russo still has her hands firmly on the wheel. She maintains overarching control of the business’s direct revenue driver, sales, and continues to attend meetings with clients and prospects, she revealed in a recent interview. Russo also ensures that proposals going out in her name pass muster.
