David Mantle

Stashbee

Stashbee is the simplest, smartest, most sustainable way for anyone to share and fill storage space. Whatever your situation or ambition, we have spaces of all sizes for people at all stages.

CEO & Co-Founder

CCO & Co-Founder

Co-CEO & Co-Founder

ICE List

ICE is a global network of high-growth founders who wish to support and accelerate tech entrepreneurs at every stage of their journey.

Member

Oddbox

Investor

BearingPoint

Manager in the UK Digital Customer Management team at BearingPoint. He has many years of experience in multiple industries, functions and geographies. 

Experience:

- Market Delivery Project Manager responsible for the launch of Connected Car Services (InControl) into BENELUX for Jaguar Land Rover. Responsibilities include but are not limited to; End to End Market Launch Readiness and Project Planning, Dealer Network Training and Readiness, Supplier Training and Readiness, Key Stakeholder Management and Communications, Operations set-up  and product accreditation. 

- Programme Planning Manager for the launch feature set for Connected Car at Jaguar Land Rover. Managed and developed the central project plan and critical path for the whole solution from technical development to market delivery across multiple workstreams launching into 5 markets simultaneously. Lead, Failure Modes analysis, product localization and new market scoping.

- Supported the divestment of BP's assets across 5 African countries worth $500m. Carried out resource planning, managed the development and subsequent monitoring of milestone plans, with 10,000+ line items, across 14 complex cross boarder workstreams.

- Identified customer and product growth opportunities and analysed Group company financials for a financial services company. Establish 5 year growth plans and a coordinated approach to customer targeting and new product development

- Developed market entry business case for a new entity in South Africa including roadmap, regulatory compliance and market analysis.

Worked in:
USA, Russia, South Africa, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden, 

Experience areas:
Connected Car, M&A, project management, organisational change, business optimisation, strategy, risk management, communications, spanning a number of industries such as automotive, oil & gas, and financial services.

Manager

Private Equity International

Account Manager

Citigroup

Implemented business continuity planning and methodology for sector business lines including Smith Barney, Citi Private Bank and Citi Investment Research. Helped develop business recovery plans and conducted 60% of all quality reviews of business recovery plans &amp; business impact analyses for global business groups. Assisted business units in meeting audit and compliance requirements (both external and internal).

Business Continuity Management Analyst

Cushman & Wakefield

Worked for the commercial and industrial investments department focusing on portfolio investments. Assisted viewings of portfolio properties and developed a database of previous investment sales. Also spent a week in the finance department assisting on property development financing options.

Sumer Intern

I'm super passionate about innovation, technology, and startups. 

I Co-Founded Stashbee which is a Marketplace for Storage & Parking. We have over 75,000 registered users with over 2.4 million sq ft of space on the platform making us the 4th largest storage provider in the UK. 

If you ever want to chat about new ideas or need some help please give me a shout.

Michael Blakley

Co-founder at Equitas | Interview intelligence software to ensure fair hiring

Founder of Equitas, inclusive interview intelligence software designed for fair hiring and helping companies build diverse teams. 

In a previous life I was a professional interview and assessment expert, designing and delivering recruitment, assessment, and interview campaigns for the likes of BSkyB, Aldi, TfL, and MoJ from entry-level hires through to C-suite. 

After 10,000+ interviews conducted across UK & Ireland, knew there had to be a better way, so set up Equitas. Working with the biggest employer in Ireland (HSE) and some incredible clients who are passionate about fair hiring, decentralised hiring, hybrid interviewing and DEI. 

Outside of work and HR tech startups talk to me about:

🏃‍♂️ Long-distance running

🥋  Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

♟  Chess

🦮  Guide Dogs

Co-Founder

Creating faster, fairer hiring with Equitas. Our inclusive interview software and dynamic interview frameworks allow companies to run their interview and assessment process with a simple, intuitive and structured approach to interviewing, assessing and selecting candidates. 

We are changing the way people assess with a focus on reducing interviewer and assessor bias, improving accuracy and making the assessment process more efficient and cost-effective. Currently working with some of the biggest healthcare providers in Ireland and the UK.

Who are the top ATSs by customer count? 

Overall: 

🥇 Workable
🥈 Ashby
🥉 Lever 

SMEs (1-1,000): surprise, surprise it's identical

🥇 Workable
🥈 Ashby
🥉 Lever 

Enterprise (5,000-10,000):  

🥇 Workday
🥈 Smartrecruiters
🥉 Greenhouse


I'd love the thoughts from the experts in this space to see if it rings true with what you are seeing or hearing? 

Gabriella Preston-Phypers, Jessie Schofer, Rob Green 🚀, Hung Lee, Alan Walker, Jeremy Russon

Founder at Equitas | CEO Screenloop | Interview intelligence and fair hiring

Another Friday shout out to epic folks in my network... 

Last week was the amazing Akbar Karenga this week we've got Martin Mason 

The amount I have learnt from Martin over at TalentMapper the last few years could fill multiple books. 

Reach out and speak to him if you're looking for advice on 


🤩 Internal Talent Mobility 

🙏 Fair hiring and DEI

💯 Building high performing teams 

😃 Anything linked to TA strategy 


He was in-house Head of TA in a past life and started building tools and programmes to help level the playing field and help underrepresented talent. 

One absolute hero to add to your network.

🙏 Recruitment and TA folks... one month to go to National Interview Week. 

So many great companies signed up to this incredible initiative by imployable® and supported by Equitas.

Here's a few of the names you might know: 

1️⃣ BBC 
2️⃣ Amazon 
3️⃣ Meta 
4️⃣ NHS 
5️⃣ Mitie 
6️⃣ Serco 
7️⃣ Siemens 
8️⃣ Rolls-Royce 
9️⃣ Mars 
🔟 Deloitte 
1️⃣1️⃣ Veolia 
1️⃣2️⃣ Allen & Overy 
1️⃣3️⃣ PageGroup 
1️⃣4️⃣ Korn Ferry 
1️⃣5️⃣ Eurostar 
1️⃣6️⃣ JLR 


And there's still time to get involved. 


If your organisation wants to give back, has 25+ volunteers and wants to make a real social impact reach out to me or Danny Heath. 


Giving students their 1st ever mock interview experience could be a bit of inspiration that designs the start of an epic career.


So if you're looking to help young people with their employability prospects, build your brand with some amazing students and genuinely give back. Then get involved. 


Happy Friday folks, have an epic weekend 🤩


Karen Hutchison Adão, Akbar Karenga, Graeme Harper, Alex Elliott, Kalpesh Baxi, Jo Major (She/her), Claudine Adeyemi-Adams FIEP, Rebecca Collis, Sharla-Jaye Duncan, Mark K. Mark Lennox, Nick Waller, Martin Mason, Erica Rose, Keirran Slimmon Karen Somal, Asil Choudhury Ben Read Read, Ben Keighley, Hannah Peet

🤩 TA and Recruitment folks, a massive thank you. 


To the 800+ volunteers signed up to give kids from state schools their first ever mock interview experience... 


YOU ARE LEGENDS. 


1️⃣  Sharing your experience & career journey

2️⃣  Hints, tips & advice on CVs & interviews 

3️⃣  Structured questions with the Skills Builder Framework 

4️⃣  Feedback reports to all students


This keeps getting bigger year by year with imployable® and Equitas 


Social impact, Employability, ESG, CSR, Volunteering and giving back this is something for you and your company 🙏


Excited for 2026 and it's only going to build from here 🤩


TY to the folks who helped shout about it: Kalpesh, Danny, Akbar, Claudine, Richard, Keith, Hung, Karen, Marina, Barbara, Giulia, Rachel and many more 🙏

Client feedback is everything in this space. 


Genuinely loved working with Graeme Harper over the last few years. Not just from an Equitas perspective but personally as well. 


✅ Interview-as-a-service with an expert pool of interviews 


✅ Interview software to capture all interview data as a single source of truth


✅ Customer Success team that moved heaven and earth to help the client 


Resulted in an award winning candidate experience and a pace that I've seen no other company work at! 🙌

AGEISM versus Aging... TA and Recruitment folks.


❌  In nearly every industry we are hearing stories of folks being knocked back for having "Too much experience" 


💯 If you get a chance have a read of the linked article from Hung Lee in this week's Recruiting Brainfood. 


https://lnkd.in/eVqVQN-A


It points out that: 


🧠 Fluid intelligence peaks near age 20 (reasoning, memory, processing speed)


📈 Other dimensions improve into midlife, including crystalised intelligence (vocab), financial literacy, and emotional stability.


🔎 Traits like conscientiousness, emotional intelligence, and moral reasoning follow an inverted U-shape, peaking in midlife before declining.


🥇 And here's the main one that stuck with me... 

"Individuals best suited for high-stakes decision-making roles are unlikely to be younger than 40 or older than 65." 



✅  So the next time you have a hiring manager or someone else involved saying something along the lines of "Too much experience" this is good ammo to challenge them and see what they mean...


Personally I'm excited about that 25-year span of being better at making decisions, as after starting up a company in my 30's and making every mistake in the book... I must have learned something by now. 


Have a great week ahead folks and let me know if you've heard the line "Too much experience" in the last 12 months?

Everyone is talking about the first stage screen being replaced by Voice AI. 


✅ Are you for? 


❌ Or against 


Whenever it comes to candidates going through a Voice AI screen? 


Adam Gordon has been pointing out that it depends on the role. Entry level or blue collar roles being a better fit for this... 


Glen Cathey wrote an article saying people preferred humans (mainly as they felt they could influence them)


And 1.5m vendors at the moment promising you that their algorithms are less biased than humans (watch Dr. Joy Buolamwini's Coded Bias if you want to see how we got it wrong with the last set of tools). 



Voices of reason to follow in this space: 


Dr. Joy Buolamwini 

Martyn Redstone 

Akbar Karenga 

Sarah Connor at the FT writing some incredible pieces. 

And every single graduate for the last decade who's had to go through a one way video interview and said they hated it i.e. candidates left with just tech having a terrible experience with the folks forcing them to use it saying it's in the name of productivity/progress.

🚨 Candidate Experience in 2026.... And the world of AI.

Right Recruitment and TA folks these 4x speakers are absolute heroes who are going to break down what's happening in the space at the moment. 


1️⃣  Candidates using AI to mass apply - no better speaker in the world than Aidan C.


2️⃣  Do TA folks practice what they preach - Rebecca Collis with a deep dive on TA hiring, structures and candidate experience in 2026


3️⃣  Candidate personas - Chris Rowe will challenge you all with the question "Do you actually understand the candidates and future employees you're looking for and what drives them" 


4️⃣  Employer brand in 2026 - no one across the globe who knows more about this topic than Claire de Souza 


It will be roll on and roll off with the speakers and with 130+ TA and Recruitment folks signed up so far it could be an action packed Q&A


This is one that you do not want to miss as you're going to get actionable insights and takeaways from some of the best people in the space.

🥇 TA and Recruitment folks. 

Akbar Karenga and I are hearing more and more folks are ATS shopping at the moment. 

🚨 Some people even doing 18x demos 👀  

Getting the core part of your hiring stack is more important than ever. So people are spending more time on it. 


But what's you no.1 priority: 

1️⃣ Price

2️⃣ Features

3️⃣ Customer Support

4️⃣ What's an ATS....

What's most important when you're choosing an ATS?

The author can see how you vote. Learn more

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David Mantle

Michael Blakley

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Michael Blakley's LinkedIn Performance

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