Thinking of starting a dating agency or matchmaking service?

Heather Heber Percy

Well known throughout the UK dating industry since she founded her own dating agency; Country Partners, in 1983 that became a huge success and covered the entire country at a time when there were only five other dating agencies – introduction agencies as they were called then – in the UK. Huge positive media coverage helped to provide a much-needed and trustworthy dating service in both Town and Country areas.
In the 1990s, Heather went on to create another specialised dating service called The County Register and was the first person in the UK to come up with the idea of headhunting for people wanting to find a partner in life. Heather also became a Director of Praxis, a well known Interim Management Company based in the Midlands – one of the first of its kind. The founder and CEO Carl Hague had enormously creative ideas that spilled over into Heather’s own business, helping her to develop The County Register even further.
Again in the 1990s, Heather became the Chairman of The Association of British Introduction Agencies, but resigned in 2020, to help further develop The Dating Agency Association, where Heather is currently the CEO. The DAA is a newer and forward-thinking Association that traditional dating agencies within the UK today may wish to become a part of.

Edward Ankrett

Meet ‘Mr. Dating’ Eddy Ankrett, who was appointed as the Independent Chairman of the Dating Agency Association on 27th March 2017 after a long and successful career within the dating industry.
His involvement started in the 1990s where he worked with Elite Introductions, Dateline, Dateline Holdings, Global Personals, The Dating Factory and Match Me Now. He brings with him a wealth of experience from within the industry and externally, where he is one of the best known and best-connected businessmen in the Midlands, with experience as a business owner, entrepreneur, Director and Chairman of PLC and private companies.
Eddy has an infectious positivity and natural enthusiasm for dating. Eddy has long been an advocate of personal matchmaking and indeed formed his own first venture into dating around this traditional face to face concept. He is committed to the promotion of traditional face to face personal introductions and particularly the safety aspects of dating. He is a significant force behind our dating safely campaign.

We want to raise the overall standards of new start up agencies and matchmakers today.

Having been involved in dating for many years, we still retain the same enthusiasm and interest as we did when we started our own dating agencies all those years ago - we genuinely enjoy and want to continue working within the dating industry.

Ask the Dating Experts is something we would have found extremely valuable when starting out ourselves and we believe you too will enjoy launching yourself into the industry armed with what we’ve learnt along the way.