IB Woman
Issue No. 38 - December/January 07/08
Nursing an intuitive business
by Penelope Herbert
For someone who never wanted to run her own business, Maria Kourtesis has done surprisingly well.
Reacting to the perceived need for a more personalised nursing recruitment business, the ‘napkin strategy’ developed by Maria and her silent partner, husband Peter, in 1993 was a two to five-year business plan. But dramatic growth within the first six months of business meant condensing the timeframes.
“I had a two-pronged strategy,” Maria explains, “which was to offer our permanent staff an early profit share plan to attract committed and driven people and to reinvest profits back in to the business.
“We also originally had a narrow focus which was white collar and professionals.”
Making a difference in the lives of people requiring assistance has been the mainstay of Maria’s business with her personal passions and vibrancy directly influencing the growth and success of Prime Medical Placements. She says strengths can be learned: she has acquired management skills the hard way but having a mentor, her husband Peter, has been a godsend.
“I believe everyone needs a mentor in business,” she says. “I didn’t realise that I had picked up what I consider to be the best characteristics of two of my past employers because management isn’t just about leadership and direction, it’s also about managing people as individuals and building on their strengths.”
Maria laughs as she suggests she’s a hunter-gatherer picking up information and applying it in order to run a better business.
Growth saw Prime Placements expand into blue collar, call centre and across a spectrum of nursing in both the health and aged care sectors. Maria says she is a people-watcher and the skill has served her well in recruitment for identifying unconscious human behaviours in potential candidates.
By 1999, the Prime Placements group of recruitment companies was SA’s Fastest Growing Private Company...
