Stephenson publicly re-emerges from the ashes of Collar Group's collapse
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 headfirst 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.
Related blogs
Stephenson retakes control of Collar but history is not on his side
Collar creditors stuck between a rock and a hard place
Collar’s future in the balance with founder under fire
Can Collar’s phenomenal growth continue? Ephram Stephenson sure thinks so