PRIVACY POLICY
How we handle your information
Executive search runs on confidence. Candidates tell us things they have not told their employer, and clients tell us things they have not told their market. This policy explains what we do with that information, and what we will never do with it.
Last updated 8 August 2026
1. Who we are
Williams Recruitment is a trading name of Food Recruit Ltd, a private limited company registered in England and Wales under company number 12788663, with its registered office at 794 High Street, Kingswinford, England, DY6 8BQ.
Food Recruit Ltd is the data controller for the personal information described in this policy. We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office under registration number ZA833367.
If you have any question about how we handle your information, or you want to exercise any of the rights set out below, write to Scott Williams at scott@williams-recruitment.com. Your enquiry comes to the person who runs the firm, not to a ticketing queue.
2. Whose information we hold
Candidates and prospective candidates — senior executives we approach, are introduced to, or who approach us, whether or not they are actively looking to move.
Client contacts — individuals at private equity firms, portfolio companies, and family- and founder-owned businesses who instruct us or take part in a search.
Referees — people a candidate nominates, or who agree to speak to us, in connection with a reference.
Website visitors — anyone who uses williams-recruitment.com or submits our enquiry form.
3. What information we collect
For candidates, this typically includes: name and contact details; current and previous roles, employers and dates; CV or biography; remuneration history and expectations; notice period and availability; qualifications; our own written assessment notes and interview records; references; and, where a search reaches offer stage, information needed to verify identity and right to work.
For client contacts, this typically includes: name, job title, employer, and business contact details; correspondence with us; and records of the mandates you are involved in.
For website visitors: the information you enter into our enquiry form — your name, email address, the seniority and title of the role you are hiring for, and the challenge you describe.
We do not seek special category information — such as health, ethnicity, religious belief or trade union membership — and you should not send it to us. Where it is unavoidable, for example an adjustment needed for an interview, we use it only for that purpose and delete it afterwards.
4. Where your information comes from
Executive search means we often hold information about people before we have spoken to them. We are direct about this, because you are entitled to know.
We may obtain your information from: you directly; publicly available professional sources such as LinkedIn, company websites, trade press and industry directories; introductions and referrals from people in our network; and our client, where they name someone they would like us to approach.
If we hold information about you that we did not get from you, we will tell you within one month of obtaining it — or at the point we first contact you, if that is sooner. That notice will tell you what we hold and where it came from. If you would rather we did not hold it at all, say so and we will delete it.
5. Why we use your information, and our lawful basis
Legitimate interests. We use candidate information to identify, approach, assess and introduce senior executives for specific mandates, and to maintain a specialist network in food and beverage. We have assessed that this is a reasonable use that a senior executive in this sector would expect, that it is limited to professional information, and that it does not override your rights. You can object at any time, and we will stop.
Contract. We use client contact information to agree terms, deliver a search, and invoice for it. We use candidate information at offer and onboarding stage to take steps at your request before a contract of employment is entered into.
Legal obligation. We keep certain records to meet tax, accounting, right-to-work and anti-discrimination obligations.
Consent. We rely on consent where we send you material you have specifically asked for. You can withdraw it at any time without affecting anything we did beforehand.
6. Confidentiality — and what we will not do
A conversation with us does not put your name in front of anyone. We will not submit your details to a client, name you to a third party, or confirm to anyone that you are in a process, without your explicit agreement on each occasion.
We will not contact your current employer, or approach a referee, without your permission.
We do not sell, rent or trade personal information. We do not send unsolicited marketing lists to clients. We do not publish candidate information, and the mandates shown on our website describe roles and businesses in general terms only, never named individuals.
We will not use your information to train third-party artificial intelligence models.
7. Who we share information with
Clients — only the candidates you have agreed we may introduce, and only for the mandate in question.
Service providers who process information on our behalf under written terms — our candidate relationship management system, email and document hosting, website hosting, and scheduling software. They act on our instructions and may not use your information for their own purposes.
Professional advisers — our accountants and, if needed, our solicitors, where there is a proper reason.
Regulators, HMRC and law enforcement where we are legally required to disclose.
If Food Recruit Ltd is ever sold or merged, information may transfer to the buyer, who would be bound by this policy.
8. Sending information outside the UK
We conduct searches globally, so your information may be sent outside the United Kingdom — for example to a client or portfolio company based overseas, or to a technology provider hosting data abroad.
Where we do this, we rely on one of the following: a UK adequacy decision for the destination country; the International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses; or, for a specific introduction you have agreed to, the fact that the transfer is necessary to take steps at your request.
You can ask us which safeguard applies to a particular transfer and we will tell you.
9. How long we keep information
Candidates and prospective candidates: two years from our last meaningful contact with you. If we speak again within that period, the two years restarts. At the end of it we delete your record or, if you agree, confirm that you are happy for us to keep it.
Placed candidates: for the duration of the Williams365 guarantee period and for six years afterwards, to meet our contractual and tax obligations.
Client records and search files: six years from the end of the engagement, reflecting the limitation period for contractual claims.
Website enquiries that do not lead to an engagement: twelve months.
Right-to-work documents: two years from the end of the relevant employment, as required.
These are maximum periods. If your information stops being useful to us before then, we delete it earlier.
10. Your rights
Under UK data protection law you have the right to: be told what we hold about you and receive a copy; have inaccurate information corrected; have your information deleted; restrict how we use it; receive it in a portable format; object to our use of it under legitimate interests, including profiling; and withdraw consent where we have relied on it.
You also have an absolute right to object to direct marketing at any time.
To exercise any of these, email scott@williams-recruitment.com. We will respond within one month. We do not charge a fee. We may ask you to confirm your identity first, which protects you as much as us.
We do not make decisions about candidates by automated means. Every assessment and every shortlist is the judgement of a person.
11. Keeping information secure
Candidate and client information is held in access-controlled systems protected by multi-factor authentication and encryption in transit and at rest. Access is limited to those who need it to run a search. Our providers are chosen on the basis of their security posture and are bound by written processing terms.
No system is perfect. If a breach occurs that is likely to result in a risk to your rights, we will report it to the Information Commissioner's Office within 72 hours and tell you directly where the risk is high.
12. Cookies and this website
This website is built and hosted on Framer. It sets only the cookies strictly necessary to serve the site and keep it secure. We do not run advertising or tracking cookies, and we do not build profiles of visitors.
We measure how this site is used with Plausible Analytics, a privacy-focused service that sets no cookies, stores no personal data and does not follow visitors across other websites. It records aggregate information only — pages viewed, referring source, country and device type — none of which identifies you. Because no personal data is processed, no consent banner is required. Plausible processes this data within the European Union.
Our website links to third-party services, including LinkedIn, WhatsApp and our scheduling provider. Once you follow one of those links, that provider's own privacy policy applies, not ours.
We do not use Google Analytics, advertising pixels or remarketing tags of any kind.
13. Complaints
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, tell us first — email scott@williams-recruitment.com and we will look into it properly.
You also have the right to complain directly to the Information Commissioner's Office at any time. Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. Helpline 0303 123 1113. ico.org.uk
14. Changes to this policy
We review this policy at least annually. If we change it materially we will update the date at the top of the page and, where the change affects you directly, tell you.
This policy was last updated on 8 August 2026, when we added privacy-friendly website analytics.