Meet the team

A woman (Bonnie Harold) with long hair wearing a striped shirt and a patterned scarf, standing in front of a brick wall with ivy.

Co-founder and CEO

Nicky Badenoch

Nick Grime

Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer

Black and white portrait of a smiling man (Steve Reekie) outdoors with a blurred background of foliage, wearing a light-colored shirt.
Portrait of a smiling man (Sir John Hegarty) in a black vest and shirt, on a white background. Black and white image.

Brian Collings

Sir John Hegarty

Board Director

Investor & Advisor

Black and white portrait of a smiling woman (Nicky Badenoch) wearing a sweater and necklace, with a painting in the background.
Black and white portrait of a man (Nick Grime) smiling, wearing a jacket and patterned shirt.

Bonnie Harold

Steve Reekie

Chief Technology Officer

Co-founder

Our story

Genie was born from a shared frustration: too many organisations relied on instinct over data when building teams, missing hidden potential.

Co-founder and CEO Nick Grime’s journey began in elite football playing in Arsenal’s youth academy,  where he learned that every metric, from physical readiness to team dynamics, was analysed to drive success. After realising he wasn’t going to play in the Premier League, he turned to the Science of Sport, studying at Loughborough University, applying performance insights to business.

Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer Nicky Badenoch,  inspired by her father’s belief in luck, saw how being in the right room, with the right people, at the right time was critical to driving success — but felt this should not be left to chance. She became passionate about engineering serendipity, ensuring the right people connected at the right time to unlock hidden potential.

The two met as partners in executive search, where they, along with Co-founder Bonnie Harold, saw organisations making external hires while untapped talent remained overlooked. They knew there was a better way.

Together with their Chief Technology Officer Steve Reekie, they built Genie: technology that applies the precision of elite sport to workforce transformation. With lifelong interest  of probability, Steve was inspired by his grandfather, a WWII gunner who used trigonometry to calculate shell trajectories, and his father, who introduced him to the world of bookmakers and odds-making. This early fascination led him to study Economics and Game Theory at UCL. Now, he applies these insights to capturing the right data and building best-in-class AI-powered matching, helping organisations make smarter, faster talent decisions.

Genie is guided by world-class advisors who have built and scaled some of the most successful companies in their fields.

Among them:

  • Sir John Hegarty - Investor and creative industry icon, formerly Genie’s Chairman. A founding partner of Saatchi & Saatchi and later co-founder of BBH, he helped shape modern advertising. John believes Genie has the potential to transform business performance, famously saying BBH could have grown “twice as big, twice as fast” with technology like this.

  • Brian Collings -  FinTech entrepreneur, founder and former CEO of Torstone Technology, which he built into a leading global SaaS platform used by major investment firms. Brian brings deep expertise in enterprise technology, scaling, and operational excellence.

  • Professor Joel Fischer - A leading expert in Human-Computer Interaction and Responsible AI, and a member of the UK’s Responsible AI Taskforce. Joel guides Genie on ethical AI design, data governance, and the future of human-AI collaboration.

Supported by a world-class technology, product, and customer success team across London and Eastern Europe, Genie has a clear vision: To use data and AI to unlock the true value of workforces everywhere.

Are you with us?