Ephram’s back!
Yes, the man whose comebacks rival those of John Farnham has returned to public life.
Former Collar Group founder and CEO, Ephram Stephenson, announced his comeback via his first LinkedIn post since November 2024, late on Friday afternoon.
Stephenson’s updated LinkedIn profile features a now-bearded Stephenson, looking very yacht rock with that detached, serious pose and smile so beloved by business influencers.
Stephenson’s new venture, ephrams, is a business advisory practice “..grounded in real-world lessons from founding, scaling and exiting multiple award-winning start-ups and the hard hits learned along the way.”
However, within an hour, the post had been deleted.
In part, no doubt, prompted by some of the less-than-favourable comments.
Marieka Hooymans, who lost her job at Collar when the company entered voluntary administration at the end of May 2024, undoubtedly expressed a view held by many former Collar employees and creditors, when she commented.
Curiously, all of Stephenson’s employment history on LinkedIn had been deleted, which seems to be a strange strategy when you tout your track record with start-ups as a selling point.
If such experience is genuinely a selling point, then why remove any evidence of such experience?
Undeterred by his wobbly return to LinkedIn, Stephenson was back on Monday…..with a podcast!
Yes, the imaginatively named The Ephram Stephenson Podcast is coming our way.
The podcast’s LinkedIn page promoted episode 1, “In the Trenches”, with the opening sentence, “Curious how I scaled a team to over 140 in just three years, rocketing from $45M to $90M in annual revenue in only twelve months?… Only to crash head first into the brutal pitfalls of explosive growth?”
As one recruitment agency owner who saw the post commented to me, “That’s easy, don’t pay taxes or staff entitlements to the tune of $20m+”!
Stephenson appears to have a whole PR campaign mapped out for the next couple of weeks leading up to the first episode of his podcast.
However, it’s fair to say the reception to his, now regular, LinkedIn posts has been muted to say the least.
Take this post from earlier today, which clocked up 11 likes and no comments after nine hours.
Other posts have received a similarly underwhelming response.
Curious as to the sudden reappearance of Stephenson, I emailed administrator David Ross from I&R Advisory, for an update on the Collar Group liquidation, with the following questions.
- Has the Collar Group liquidation been completed?
- If yes, when was it completed?
- If no, when do you expect it to be completed, and what are the remaining issues to be closed?
- Have you formed a view as to whether Stephenson may have breached section 180 of the Corporations Act (care and diligence), and section 181 (good faith)? If so, what is that view and what action has been (or is likely to be) taken as a result?
- Do you have any additional relevant information you are willing to share with me?
I had not heard back by publication time, however, I will update this blog if and when I receive a response.
In the meantime, I look forward to hearing what Stephenson has learned and taken responsibility for regarding the spectacular collapse of Collar Group (for which he was solely responsible) when I listen to episode 1 of his podcast.
This article has been reprinted from Ross Clennett’s blog with permission.
Visit Ross’s blog:https://rossclennett.com/blog/
About Ross:
Ross Clennett is a high-performance recruitment coach, blogger, and commentator with over 30 years of industry experience. After starting his career in 1989, he placed over 1,500 candidates across London and Australia before launching RossClennett.com in 2003, offering coaching and leadership programs for the recruitment sector. A Fellow of the RCSA, he was awarded the RCSA CEO Outstanding Contribution in 2022. Since 2007, he has shared his insights and opinions on recruitment, the recruitment industry, leadership and the labour market through his weekly blog. Passionate about giving back, Ross has raised over $140,000 for breast cancer research since 2012. Based on the Mornington Peninsula, his interests include stand-up paddleboarding, cricket, open-water swimming, golf, and supporting the Sydney Swans (AFL) and Arsenal (EPL).
