Peter Searle has returned to IT recruiter Computer People as CEO, only three months after resigning his position as MD. Searle claims that he never actually left the company and was simply ‘on holiday’ before being asked to return by John Bowmer, CEO of Computer People’s owner Adecco.

After 13 years at Computer People, Searle resigned as managing director on 13 March, saying at the time that he was ‘looking for a new challenge’. His resignation came after a disagreement about the future of the Computer People brand. According to Searle, Peter Pfister, head of professional staffing services at Adecco, ‘wanted to use the CP name as a franchise, while I believed Computer People should be run as a single unit’. Searle’s return to the company coincides with Pfister’s retirement, but the two situations are ‘unrelated’, Searle claimed.

Despite announcements in March that Computer People was sorry to see Searle depart, he insisted that ‘I never left the company’, and confirmed that he had remained on the payroll throughout. He also said that he had had numerous job offers in his time away, but had turned them down.

The new management board has not yet been appointed, but ‘there will be quite a lot of changes’, said Searle: ‘I expect no bad feeling. We are in the strongest position we’ve ever been in here and we have the strongest management team we have ever had.’

Commenting on his new role, Searle said that he is ‘looking forward to developing a major presence on a worldwide scale. We are looking to expand into the US market, and will be stepping up our European presence as well.’