Paula McDonnell
My TTM is
Special. Challenging. Rewarding. Empowering. Unique.
One of the reasons why TTM is so driven to unlock the potential of people, is that the MD herself has travelled such an extraordinary journey of ‘making it happen'.
Paula grew up in rural Co. Mayo and started her career in London working on the Sales floor of the Wembley branch of Marks & Spencers, within a year she was asked to join the company’s Recruitment team, which led to managing a team of five. On returning to Ireland, Paula took a role as Branch Manager with recruitment firm Adecco in Limerick, building it up to become the most successful branch in Ireland. After five years, she returned to retail - becoming Regional Fashion Manager for Tesco in the West of Ireland, responsible for every store from Donegal to Tipperary. Returning to her love of recruitment in 2008, she joined TTM Healthcare as Team Manager, progressing to General Manager and then to Operations Director. In 2017, she took on the role as Managing Director taking TTM to €70m in sales and the NRF Recruitment Agency of the year in 2018. Paula continues to bring her in depth knowledge of the recruitment industry to the table and is passionate about the power of recruitment and the opportunity to realise the potential of both the individuals and the organisations we serve. Today she is responsible for the overall management and strategic development of our markets, along with building a successful and talented sales team tasked with delivering an exceptional experience for our candidates and customers. Paula is currently a member of the NRF Committee and was part of the NRF steering committee, which assisted in developing the Level 8 degree apprenticeship programme with NCI.
"I was the loudest person in the office, but I quickly realised that I didn't know anything about healthcare so I started learning from my candidates. ‘Tell me what you do, tell me how you do it', I would say over and over to those candidates. I spent hours and hours just talking to people and from there I grew the divisions, starting off in Social Care, on to Nursing and as the years went by there was more and more opportunity. “My ‘thing’ is building – developing something truly great with amazing people. I love taking a challenge and turning it into an opportunity. I think the recipe has been simple – I wanted to create an environment of high-performance and high-reward. I’m also really passionate about keeping great people in the west of Ireland. Normally career opportunities like this are in Dublin, Limerick and the bigger cities – we’ve created something so unique, right here in Clare.”
Paula likes to get outside into the fresh air whenever she can, for walks with her boys – and is also a keen GAA Mayo Football fan.