Letter from the founders

Disruption is at the core of Bench. More importantly, disruption is at the core of its founder’s DNA. The Bench story started many years before it was introduced to the world in 2017.

Over two decades ago, Sukhi stumbled into the world of contract recruitment in the UK, which in 2000 would bring him to Australia. Even during his early years, Sukhi felt the very nature of how the industry operated was flawed. So, in 2002, he and a former colleague hung up their shingle and started their own tech recruitment business with the sole intention of disrupting the traditional agency model.

It was through this journey, in 2011 the idea for Bench was conceived. Even Though Bench 1.0 was rudimentary in nature it provided Sukhi with a key insight. ICT Businesses needed to evolve their operating models to remain relevant and competitive within a fast changing landscape. The message was clear: the market needed faster, simpler ways to access broader networks of capabilities in order to remain competitive and offer their customers more value.

In the meantime in a parallel universe, Andrew had begun his love affair with the digital world at the turn of the millennium, teaching himself to code over a coffee-fuelled long weekend to turn around a digital disaster and help close a $5M funding round. And that was that… he was hooked.  

Andrew spent the years honing his craft, delivering and leading innovative projects for global giants, indie startups and everything in between, picking up a swag of international awards on the way. Through his experience, Andrew learnt first-hand the power that a great idea, executed beautifully, has to change the way people do business. All he needed was the right opportunity to come along – he knew he could turn any idea into reality, and then into magic.

‘That moment’ presented itself to them both, when their paths crossed in 2017. The mission to bring Bench to life was born.

A great deal has changed in the world since then. Today we are witnessing an exponential rate of technological evolution, never experienced during any other time in history, amplifying the challenges for businesses and in turn their service providers to keep apace. Add to this the race to digitise business models on every corner of the planet, in turn creating highly fragmented and inefficient paths to expert capabilities, all exasperated by the lasting impact COVID-19 has inflicted on the world. 

We are in the eye of a perfect storm for structural and transformational changes to the way work is done.

The one thing that has not changed since 2017, is the focus of the founders to continually evolve both the tech and business model to empower their users to fully take advantage of and exploit the opportunities these paradigm shifts are presenting.

Sukhi Bhullar & Andrew Bateman