We understand what drives and motivates “startup people”
It’s in our DNA and we’re not trying to be anything else.
We appreciate the time pressure and cost constraints that Founders face and our service offering and approach is designed to deliver outstanding culture-suitable candidates at a startup-friendly price point.
- We are specialists in emerging and disruptive technology – we understand Founders, CTO’s and Digital Talent generally and we are experts in recruiting culture-suitable CEO’s, COO’s, CTO’s, CPO’s, CMO’s as well as CFO’s and Growth/Sales leaders to innovative, fast-growth businesses
- We immerse ourselves in the startup/innovation ecosystem: spending time-based at collaborative workspaces (it also helps keep our costs down!), attending meetups, providing mentorship to accelerator participants, providing early stage businesses with advice on talent considerations and introductions to build out advisory boards and then to scale post funding events
- We connect with deep talent pools and sometimes assist corporates and large enterprise clients to engage with that talent when innovation and digital transformation is required
- We provide prospective Advisory Board Directors with opportunities to engage with exciting new startups.

Luke Henningsen
Founder and Managing Director
I recruit great people for startups and help startups to build their own network of relationships for themselves. I love connecting people and have managed to make a living out of it.
The more formal, “in third person” version of my background:
Luke helps to build successful businesses through Executive Search, Advice and Investment with a focus on startup recruitment and emerging/disruptive technology. As a bridge between startup and enterprise he has been privileged to work with some of the most exciting businesses in the world – those disrupting established industries and those navigating digital change.
Before founding Scale & Swing, Luke’s career in executive search spanned more than two decades during which he co-founded, built and successfully exited/sold his interest in a high profile Executive Search firm (SHK Asia Pacific); ran a $90m recruitment business for A/NZ as EGM of an ASX listed human capital organization (Chandler Macleod Ltd) and led internal recruitment for KPMG. His startup sector experience is extensive – having led the Executive Search Practice for the MitchelLake Group in Melbourne as well as being founding Managing Director for Derwent Digital prior to establishing the startup specialist recruitment firm Scale & Swing.
Luke is an enthusiastic participant in the Australian startup community –taking an active personal interest as an Angel Investor and Advisor to startups and early stage businesses particularly around Talent, building a Board, scale up and market entry as well as acting as a Mentor within the MAP (Melbourne Accelerator Program) run by the University of Melbourne; Advisor to Hatcher+ and Skalata Ventures. You can find Luke on Linkedin.

Virginia Henningsen
Organisational Psychologist & Contract HR Consultant