About Us

Julian Sallabank

Julian is a seasoned entrepreneur and strategic corporate advisor. He has experience commercialising and growing national and international businesses, working across a range of industries, including financial services, international trade, health, education, advertising and information technologies.

He took the reins of Ignite in December 2016. Prior, he was CEO / Director of Student Edge (2010 – 2014), an organisation focused on assisting secondary and tertiary students with financial management, part‐time jobs and career pathways.

Julian holds a Master of Business and Technology (AGSM).

Mahendra Tharmarajah

Mahendra Tharmarajah is the Chief Financial Officer of the Company responsible for leading the shared services function including credit, finance, human resources, information technology and legal/commercial.

Mahendra is a transformational finance leader with over 25 years’ strategic, commercial and operational experience in building, growing and selling businesses in Australia, Asia/Pacific, UK and US across diverse sectors, in both entrepreneurial and multinational corporate environments.

He commenced his career in the accounting profession, spending 5 years with Arthur Andersen gaining experience in audit and corporate finance. After moving into commerce Mahendra spent 3 years with pay TV group Austar in various commercial finance roles and the next 9 years in head of finance roles with several fast-growing venture capital backed businesses including travel ecommerce operator Viator. At Viator Mahendra was instrumental in overseeing 200% compound annual revenue growth and expanding the business to the US and UK. In 2010 Mahendra joined the Couriers Please Group and oversaw a significant restructure, turnaround and eventual sale of that business at 12.5x EBIT in late 2014.

His core competencies include providing financial and commercial leadership, developing and executing strategy, managing change and building and growing businesses. Mahendra is a Chartered Accountant and holds a Bachelor of Economics and a Masters in Applied Finance.

Nicole Shepherd

Nicole is a thought leader who combines deep recruitment experience with a passion for developing market-leading offerings. She heads up Ignite Canberra, driving sales and leading a team of recruitment and HR professionals.

Having spent her entire 20+-year career in the industry, Nicole worked for companies such as Andersen Contracting and Peoplebank before joining Ignite where she transformed the local business from a transactional-based recruitment agency into a full-service HR consultancy. In addition to expanding business in the commercial market, under her leadership Ignite deepened their reach into the government sector. They now provide services such as countrywide volume placements, tailored recruitment processes, and HR services to a number of federal agencies.

Nicole is dedicated to making a difference in all she does – whether by helping candidates get the right roles, helping federal agencies improve the way they work with recruiters, or helping her team get more from what they do.

She serves on the Board of the Association of Professional Staffing Companies in Australia (APSCo Australia) and is an active member of Women in Information and Communication.

Roubina Giragol

Roubina Giragol is the General Manager of Ignite’s On Demand contingent workforce division, providing organisations with qualified resources on a Project-by-Project basis whether for short term or long term engagements.

Roubina has been with the organisation for over 10 years and together with her loyal and robust team has successfully delivered numerous projects for the major clients of Tier 1 System Integrators such as IBM, DXC Technologies, TATA Consultancy and a plethora of Large Corporations. She is a solution focused leader who understands business needs and how to navigate complex environments to drive outcomes which successfully deliver large scale, national and ANZ outcomes for our clients.

Roubina has a consistent relationship focused approach enabling the formation of deep, long term partnerships with organisations and individuals. These relationships are supported by the senior teams she leads that provide consistent delivery and outcomes that effectively support the tactical initiatives and strategic objectives of our clients.

Roubina has qualifications in Psychology, Business, Sales Management and Marketing and combined with her background and her genuine caring personality has made her to be unwaveringly loyal and committed to the teams and Individuals that she leads and provides her with a understanding of the responsibilities and accountabilities necessary to deliver success.

Jayson Eichstadt

Jayson is a global Human Resources, Recruitment & Manpower Solutions Professional with over 24 years expertise in Australasia, Europe, Middle East & Africa. He has successfully led, transformed and developed some of the largest recruitment and human capital businesses in the world across multiple locations and is expressly focused on customer engagement measurement and improvement.

Jayson holds a Graduate Diploma in Strategic Leadership and previously held positions as Managing Director, General and Executive Director before joining the Ignite business in 2017.

Through implicit knowledge gained in Australasia, Africa and Europe he is a trusted advisor within the global talent, Compliance, MSP/ RPO Solutions and Business operations improvement space. Human Productivity Improvement Specialist, Advisor & Consultant.

Stephen Hockey

Stephen Hockey is an industry professional with over 29 years experience in Recruitment, Manpower Solutions, Talent Management and Executive Search across Australia, Europe and the UK. He has successfully led, transformed and developed some of the largest recruitment and human capital businesses in the world across multiple locations, disciplines and sectors.

He is passionate about adding value to Boards and Stakeholders through the provision of a high quality service and securing the best talent in the marketplace.

Stephen has an MBA from one of the UK’s top business schools and has held Managing Director posts at one of the worlds largest Recruitment Consultancies in addition to running his own search firm. He has also served as a corporate representative at the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC), the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo) both in the UK and the Association of Executive Search and Leadership Consultants (AESC) in Australia.

Bruce Moss

Bruce brings 20 plus years of management within the Recruitment industry, commencing his courier, with Skilled Engineering as the QLD Contract Maintenance Manager, and progressing through several key Australian Recruitment companies with roles as National Operations Manager, National Business Development Manager, National Account Manager and General Manager of JDA.

Bruce has a Post Grad in Engineering Management and is a certified Quality practitioner. Over the last 20 years he has managed operations throughout Australia within the Defence and Recruitment Industries, within Defence he managed the BAE Systems QLD/NT DID’s operations across their Maintenance and Warehousing working closely with the JLU.

His passion is the development of quality teams, building strong relationships and developing new solutions and business. Bruce understands the importance of presentation and the need to deliver a quality service through an effective team, the combination of his knowledge, qualifications and my lateral thinking, plus focus on structural processing, places him in a unique position that gives him the ability to manage operational process, performance and people and drive Ignite to deliver a superior service to their clients.