Scary step - but top rewards

By YVETTE ADAMS

Fed up with working for others, Julia Feuell decided to try working for herself ... 10 years later, she runs one of the biggest travel recruitment companies in Britain.

Looking back on her experience, the former Aucklander advises other budding Kiwi entrepreneurs to take the plunge.

"It's always a bit of a scary decision to make [going into business for yourself] but on the whole the rewards are wonderful," she says. "It's your company and you can shape it in any way you wish to."

Feuell's accent sounds decidedly English these days but she spent the first 16 years of her life in Auckland and definitely counts herself as a New Zealander.

She moved to England with her mother when her parents split up, studied bilingual travel and tourism (specialising in German and French) and got a job with a company specialising in school sports tours.

But the job turned out to be a bit of a shambles - "there was lots of injuries and over-bookings" - so she registered with travel recruitment company TNT personnel looking for something else.

"They said, 'Why don't you come and work for us and do recruitment?' and that's how I fell into it."

Feuell was with TNT Personnel on and off for seven years, managing new branches for them as they expanded into Ilford, Southend, the City and West End.

"But in the end it was getting very hard. I found myself continuously hiring and firing, which is not what I wanted to do. So I decided to go it on my own. I found a financial director to put some funding into the company and decided to set up New Frontiers."

That was in 1993. Since then, New Frontiers has become one of the biggest travel recruitment companies in Britain, with a candidate database of 20,000.

It embraced technological advances, becoming the first travel recruitment agency in Britain to become fully computerised and the first to have a website.

The new company also developed alliances with travel recruitment companies in the countries many of their temps were from - it has links with companies in Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne, Johannesburg - a crucial advantage, says Feuell.

In between the rapid expansion of New Frontiers, Feuell has also found the time to marry and have two sons, now 8 and 11.

But even with a family, she is still very much involved in her business.

"I can't stay away from it for too long. Doing deals is quite a thrill when you're successful ... "