Background to this site - MRINetwork - Franchise ethics
This site has been created by a shareholder of CDI Corporation Inc. www.cdicorp.com. The shareholder also purchased a headhunting recruitment franchise in 1996 from Humana International Group (HIG). HIG was acquired by CDI Corporation Inc. in April 1999 and integrated into their Management Recruiters International (MRI) network of recruiters to develop their global capability. Shortly after this acquisition by CDI Corporation, HIG was renamed Management Recruiters International Worldwide (MRIWW) and worked as one global organisation with franchised recruitment offices in many countries.
More recently, Management Recruiters International have re branded to MRI Network. www.mrinetwork.com
Purpose of this site
The purpose of this site is to share information with other interested parties (e.g. shareholders) of the events that I, historically as a Management Recruiters International (MRINetwork) franchisee, and now as a shareholder in CDI Corporation, experienced whilst working with Management Recruiters International (MRINetwork) as a franchisee and in my communication with them and their parent company CDI Corporation Inc. www.cdicorp.com. This will be achieved by showing correspondence and referring to other factual issues that pertain to the events around those experiences. Some of the information will express my personal views on those events. However, I believe that my personal views are clearly stated as that, and I invite the readers to form their own unbiased views based on the factual content of the following events, details and correspondence.
Headline facts:
MRINetwork had a UK franchisee, Mr JW, whose contract expired in November 1999. At the time of CDI's acquisition (April 1999), he owed CDI/MRI in outstanding royalty payments more than £31,785 UK Pounds (approx $59,000 USD).
For the following years (1999 to 2003), MRINetwork continued to represent this person to the rest of the MRI Network as a regular bone fide franchisee, in good standing. MRINetwork years of misrepresentation.
Over the following years (1999 to 2003) whilst CDI/MRI continued with this misrepresentation of Mr JW, his debt to CDI/MRI grew year on year. Also for the majority of this time his franchise agreement had expired. (i.e. it expired on 1st Nov 1999)
I, as a real and genuine franchisee, started to inter work with Mr JW in the false belief that he was also a genuine MRINetwork franchisee. Steve Mills congratulated me in jointly winning the work with Mr JW and offering to share it with the rest of the MRINetwork (IOR). Only Steve Mills and others in the MRINetwork Corporate office and CDI knew that Mr JW had no franchise agreement and was in serious and growing debt. Steve Mills chose to kept that secret from me and continue with the deliberate deception about Mr JW, to the whole of the MRINetwork.
In March 2003 MRINetwork Management eventually informed the MRI network that Mr JW was no longer part of the franchise network. This was approaching 3.5 years after his franchise agreement expired and over 4 years since he was up to date on Royalty payments.
At the time when MRI eventually declared that he was no longer part of the MRI franchise network, his debts to MRINetwork /CDI Corporation had grown to over £170,000 UK Pounds (approx $316,000 USD).
Prior to this, he had already worked with at least one other franchisee (masquerading as a regular franchisee, and as portrayed by MRINetwork) and withheld money due to the real regular franchisee, in the same way that he had been withholding money from MRINetwork for years previously.