Vanessa Challess
Founder · practising litigation solicitor
The one who got tired of watching founders pay law-firm rates for HR answers. Vanessa leads every piece of advice and decides the moment a matter needs Bonsai Law's regulated lawyers.
About
Built by someone who gottired of corporate HR.
Electra HR exists because too many founders were paying retainers to firms that answered slowly, spoke in jargon, and treated every question as a billing opportunity. We're the opposite of that.
The story
A solicitor who chose the HR side of the table
Electra HR was founded by Vanessa Challess, a practising litigation solicitor who spent years watching the same pattern: a small business hits a people problem, calls a corporate HR firm or a law firm, and gets either a script or an invoice. Rarely an answer.
So Electra was built around what SMEs actually need — fast, plain-English HR advice from someone with genuine legal judgement, at prices a 10-person company can justify. Based in Maidstone, Kent; working with founders across the UK.
And because some matters genuinely do turn legal, Electra works alongside Bonsai Law — a separate, SRA-regulated law firm — so the moment a situation needs legal advice, representation or privilege protection, you're handed straight in with full context.
Maidstone, Kent — our home base. Our clients are everywhere from Cornwall to the Highlands.
The people
Small team. Real humans. No call handlers.
Isaline Sergeant
Senior HR Consultant
The steady hand on day-to-day HR — advice, processes and the conversations managers dread. Isaline keeps things calm, fair and moving.
How we work
Three rules we won't break
Speed over theatre
A fast, honest answer beats a slow, polished one. We optimise for the moment you're actually in.
Humans over process
Processes serve people, never the reverse. If a policy makes your business worse, the policy loses.
Candour over comfort
If you're about to do something risky, we say so plainly. That's the job.
The Electra / Bonsai distinction
Electra HR is an HR consultancy, not a law firm, and is not regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Day-to-day HR — advice, documents, processes, training — sits with us. Anything that needs legal advice, representation or the protection of legal professional privilege is provided separately by Bonsai Law, an SRA-regulated firm. One joined-up route, two clear roles, no grey areas.
Work with us