Laura Davies
Laura Davies is the Founder and Managing Director of Marshall Harmony, a specialist recruitment and executive search consultancy supporting the manufacturing, engineering and technical sectors across the UK.
With more than 26 years of experience, Laura has built her reputation by challenging one of the biggest assumptions businesses make: that recruitment is the answer.
Her philosophy is simple:
Businesses don’t have recruitment problems. They have people challenges. Recruitment is simply where those challenges become visible.
Rather than starting with a job description, Laura starts with a question:
“What problem are you really trying to solve?”
Known for her honest, energetic and practical style, Laura helps business leaders step back from the immediate pressure to recruit and understand the wider business challenge. Whether it’s leadership, succession planning, onboarding, retention, culture, or capability, she believes the best hiring decisions are made when organisations first understand what success really looks like.
Through Marshall Harmony, Laura has partnered with hundreds of organisations, helping them move beyond transactional recruitment to build stronger teams, improve retention, and create workplaces where people genuinely want to stay.
Outside of recruitment, Laura is a passionate advocate for UK manufacturing and engineering. She works closely with organisations including Women With Metal, the University of Wolverhampton Racing team, ALFED, Engineers Insight, and Acorns Children’s Hospice, championing careers, diversity and the long-term future of British industry.
Laura is also the host of the Hire Me Maybe podcast, where she shares honest conversations about careers, leadership, and the realities of building successful businesses through great people.
Her keynote, People Don’t Build Great Businesses. Great Businesses Build Great People, challenges leaders to rethink the way they approach recruitment. Blending commercial insight with practical experience and real-life examples, Laura explores why hiring is only one part of the equation and how recruitment, onboarding and retention must work together to create lasting business success.
Audiences leave with practical ideas they can implement immediately, a fresh perspective on people strategy and one question that has the power to change every hiring decision they make:
“What problem are you really trying to solve?”