Duchesse Kala-Kala of Duchesse Recruitment: Building a boutique agency where values come first

A recruiter who never forgot the human behind the CV

Duchesse Kala-Kala carries a quiet confidence that comes from clarity. She knows why she does the work she does, and it shows in how she speaks about people and their careers. Years spent watching candidates take risks and navigate pivotal moments in their working lives have shaped her approach and the way she runs her business today.

Duchesse is the founder of Duchesse Recruitment, a boutique recruitment agency working across the pharmaceutical and tech industries, connecting global organisations with candidates they can truly grow with. It is a business shaped by trust and relationships, not just transactions. For Duchesse, recruitment is not a numbers game. It is people’s lives, their livelihoods, and their confidence on the line.

She describes her work simply: 

“Behind those businesses are people, I deal with people.”

Her journey represents what happens when personal values meet professional skill, and when a woman decides she is not waiting for permission to build the kind of business she wishes existed.

The women who planted the seed

Duchesse’s story begins long before London. She was born and raised in Africa, and moved to Europe as a teenager, first to France and later to the UK. That early movement across countries and cultures gave her perspective and resilience, shaping her personal and professional journey.

The entrepreneurial spark, though, came from home.

Her grandmother raised seven children while building a small market-based enterprise, growing and selling produce through daily, practical work. It was an early example of entrepreneurship rooted in consistency, problem-solving, and care. Her mother carried a similar fire, always exploring new business ideas, experimenting, learning from what didn’t work, and refining her approach over time.

Watching those women shaped Duchesse’s mindset early. She grew up understanding that entrepreneurship is rarely linear, but deeply impactful when approached with patience and persistence.

Choosing meaning and making it personal

Duchesse began her career in HR, then moved quickly into recruitment after arriving in London, where the work immediately clicked. She loved the pace, the responsibility, and the constant human interaction. Over time, she grew into leadership and managed a team, building experience that would later become the foundation of her own agency.

Then came a turning point many founders recognise: a moment where life forces a pause, and the pause creates clarity. For Duchesse, that moment was COVID. The world slowed down, and she found herself with space to think.

She did not just want to start a business for the sake of it. She wanted something that felt aligned with who she is.

“I wanted to create something that was both meaningful and personal,” she says.

Recruitment, for her, was already meaningful. It was also a space where she had seen frustration up close: great candidates struggling to find the right opportunity, potential being missed, people being filtered out before they were really seen. She wanted to do the work her way, supporting candidates she believed in and partnering with companies she respected.

That is how Duchesse Recruitment was born.

The reality behind the dream: wearing every hat

Starting a business is often described as freedom. In reality, Duchesse found it brought a different kind of responsibility, with every decision resting on her shoulders.

“The biggest challenge so far has been wearing multiple hats,” she says.

In the early days, she had no funding and no built-in support system. She was a solo entrepreneur, building everything from scratch. She knew recruitment. She knew business development. She knew leadership. What she did not yet know was everything else that suddenly becomes your job when you go out on your own: marketing, accounting, bookkeeping, building a website, managing cash flow, planning, and setting strategy.

She speaks about it with honesty and without self-pity. It was hard, but it was also formative. She learned fast as the demands of running the business forced her to understand every moving part, including the financial side. For Duchesse, building a company meant knowing what the numbers were telling her, even with professional support in place. She wanted to understand expenses, tax obligations, and cash flow, not to replace an accountant, but to stay in control of the business she was building.

There is also a practical truth many founders do not say out loud enough: sometimes you do everything yourself because you cannot afford not to. Hiring support too early can break a business that is still finding its footing. So you figure it out, keep costs tight, and grow your skills alongside the company.

It is a difficult season, but it shapes you.

Trust, loyalty, and the joy of being chosen

For Duchesse, one of the most rewarding parts of the journey has been building trust independently. In a corporate environment, she worked under an established brand. When she launched Duchesse Recruitment, she stepped out on her own, with only her professional reputation to rely on.

Clients and candidates chose to work with her because of the way she operates and the relationships she builds. That trust goes beyond business success. It reflects confidence not just in a service, but in her judgement, integrity, and care.

She says it plainly: 

“What I do is more than just placing a candidate.”

In her world, recruitment is a process of learning people. It is conversations about aspiration and motivation, the realities of life, the culture someone thrives in, and the manager who will either bring out their best or drain them slowly. When a candidate gets the job and feels genuinely happy, she feels it too. That is the joy. That is the purpose.

What she wishes she knew at the start: boundaries are part of the job

Ambition alone is not enough to build something sustainable. Duchesse learned that lesson first-hand, as many founders do.

In the beginning, the business is in your head at all times. You carry it into the evening, you carry it into weekends, you keep working because you feel you should, and because time really does feel like money. The risk is that you start living in constant survival mode, physically and mentally exhausted, unable to switch off.

Her advice to her past self is clear: 

“It’s important to have boundaries.”

Her approach is grounded in practical, discipline-based habits. Turning the laptop off, sleeping properly, getting outside, and making time for family all became part of how she learned to work more sustainably. Five years in, she is still building the business, and is far more intentional about protecting her own wellbeing.

Being a Black woman in a space where you are often the only one

Duchesse speaks about representation from lived experience, shaped by years of navigating spaces where it was lacking.

As a Black woman, she has often been underrepresented, particularly in leadership. During her teenage years in France, she attended school in a small village where the only person who looked like her was her sister. These early years had a lasting impact on her confidence and sense of belonging.

Those experiences shaped how she navigates business today. She learned to treat underrepresentation as a reality, then turn it into fuel. She learned to work harder, not because she agrees with the unfairness, but because she refuses to let it stop her.

Her words carry both pride and defiance: 

“Yes I am a black woman, I work harder, I’m as successful as anybody else, I just have to prove it to you.”

That shouldn’t be necessary. Still, it is a reality many women recognise, especially women of colour. Duchesse does not only push through it, she builds with it in mind. She holds a personal mission to prioritise women and people of colour in leadership roles when clients come to her with hiring needs, helping to shift what leadership looks like one placement, one introduction, and one opportunity at a time.

Values you can feel: trust, transparency, honesty

Some businesses have values written on their website. For Duchesse, values are reflected in her day-to-day decisions, from the clients she works with to how she defines success. Running her own business gives her the autonomy to decide how she operates, who she collaborates with, and the standards she upholds.

That approach starts with alignment. If the values do not match, the partnership does not continue. That clarity has helped her build a commercially strong business without losing her integrity. It also explains why maintaining quality across continents has not been a struggle. Values are not location-specific. Trust is trust, and honesty is honesty.

Her approach is direct: 

“Because my values are trust, transparency, and honesty, I make sure to partner with clients and candidates who have the same values as me.”

This is how she has built something that is both profitable and meaningful from day one.

Mentorship, giving back, and impact behind the scenes

Duchesse’s impact extends beyond the roles she fills. Alongside her recruitment work, she invests time in supporting women who are navigating career transitions.

She mentors women directly and regularly helps individuals who approach her for CV guidance and interview preparation. This includes women returning to work after time away for family, who may need practical support rebuilding confidence as much as refining their experience on paper. Even when she cannot place someone within her own sectors, she focuses on helping them articulate their value and re-enter the job market with clarity and confidence.

Mentorship, for Duchesse, is a source of purpose rooted in the belief that progress is meaningful even when it is quiet or unseen.

As she puts it, 

“Even if you help just one person, it’s a beautiful thing to do.”

Her approach is a reminder that leadership does not always look like visibility or scale. Sometimes it is a conversation, a moment of reassurance, or giving someone the tools to believe in their own capability.

What still holds women back, and what needs to change

When Duchesse looks at the bigger picture, she comes back to a familiar barrier: fear of the unknown.

Many women are raised with a particular narrative: study, get a stable job, build a family, keep things secure. Entrepreneurship disrupts that script; it asks you to live with uncertainty, especially around income. It also asks you to step outside what is familiar, often while still carrying responsibilities at home.

She also points out something quietly powerful: representation reduces fear. When you do not know other women who have started businesses, it can feel like something “other people” do. When you see women doing it, the leap looks smaller and the possibility feels more real.

She has seen that change up close. Her daughter is 21 and already thinking about starting something on the side. Duchesse notices the difference between that mindset and her own at the same age. She believes it is part of a wider shift, and she is hopeful about where it leads.

Her view is simple and encouraging: 

“The more women who are doing it, the better it will be.” 

Advice from Duchesse: start before you overthink it

If you are waiting to feel ready, Duchesse would probably smile and tell you to act anyway.

She knows businesses are not perfect and that there will be struggles, yet she still believes the biggest risk is never starting at all, and living with regret. 

Her advice is straightforward: 

“Do it, don’t be scared.” 

Not because it is easy, but because it is possible. You learn by doing, and ideas only take shape when they are tested in the real world.

Two words for the journey: resilience and courage

When asked to describe her founder journey, Duchesse points to two qualities. Resilience, because setbacks are part of building anything from scratch, and courage, because choosing to start requires stepping away from certainty. She had a good job, a steady income, and a clear path in corporate recruitment, yet chose to build something of her own.

It was a deliberate decision, shaped by her experiences and a clear sense of readiness.

The takeaway: a founder-led business built to last

Duchesse Kala-Kala has built Duchesse Recruitment with skill, heart, and a clear sense of self. She has created a boutique agency where relationships matter, values guide decisions, and impact is measured in human outcomes, not just figures. She is proof that you can build a commercially strong business without compromising how you want to treat people. She is also proof that representation, even when hard-won, can become a tool for change.

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