People on the move: AFEX; CBRE; Mobica; Forward Role Recruitment; Amicus Property Finance

AFEX, one of the world’s largest non-bank providers of global payment and risk management solutions, has appointed former rugby professional Bryan Redpath as head of AFEX Sport.

The newly-created position will see Redpath, who was most recently head coach of Yorkshire Carnegie rugby union team, focus on building the firm’s presence among sporting institutions across the North of England and Scotland. He is based in AFEX’s Manchester office on King Street.

Wayne Mitchell, general manager EMEA for AFEX, said: “We have experienced considerable success in providing our innovative and cost efficient FX and international payments solutions to sporting teams and individuals. Bryan has a huge amount of experience and excellent connections throughout the industry and will be instrumental in further extending our business in what is a key target sector for us.”

AFEX’s sports clients currently include British Cycling, St Helens RFC, British Weightlifting, the Rugby Football League and Toronto Wolfpack, the world’s first transatlantic rugby league team to play in the RFL.

Redpath has 22 years’ experience in professional rugby union playing for Melrose Racing club de Narbonne in France, Sale Sharks and Edinburgh, winning 60 caps for Scotland, captaining the team on 26 occasions and appearing in the 1995, 1999 and 2003 World Cups.

He began his coaching career with Gloucester, before moving to Sale Sharks in 2012 and Yorkshire Carnegie in 2015, where he led them to the Championship promotion play-offs.

“This is an exciting opportunity to join a great team,” said Redpath. “I look forward to helping build awareness of how AFEX can help sports teams, and their players and staff, manage their international payments and foreign currency needs.

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CBRE has strengthened its growing planning and development team in Manchester with the appointment of Chris Sinton as senior planner.

Sinton brings a strong background as a commercial planning consultant with seven years’ experience in the private sector, as well as environmental planning expertise.

CBRE said it welcomes his wealth of experience across a diverse range of projects, including residential, mixed use, employment, leisure, infrastructure and care schemes.

Iain Jenkinson, senior director, said: “The team is really pleased to welcome Chris Sinton to the CBRE business. Chris will bring plenty of experience and enthusiasm to an already lively team that is involved in some of the region’s largest and most complex planning projects.”

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Wilmslow, Cheshire-based software services company Mobica has announced that Mike Whitchurch has taken over from Eric Ljungberg as its chief executive.

Jeff Brownlee has meanwhile assumed the role of chief operations officer.
Whitchurch was previously senior vice president of CGI and was responsible for the UK private sector operations and led the integration of all Logica activities following the acquisition by CGI.

Brownlee spent more than 20 years at Nokia as a global delivery head. Most recently he was at Harman Connected Services where he was responsible for engineering services to Smartphone and Automotive customers.

Over nine years Ljungberg has helped lead Mobica, from 120 staff to the team of 1200 in 4 countries, to where we are today. His contribution to Mobica’s success has been outstanding.

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Forward Role Recruitment has continued its rapid expansion in 2017 with the appointment of Izzy Khan.

Khan joins from WeAreAdam and strengthens Manchester-based Forward Role’s offering across marketing and digital recruitment in Yorkshire.

Managing director Steve Thompson states: “Hiring Izzy is a real coup for the business. She’s been very successful building a name for herself in the Northern Marketing recruitment space and we’re looking forward to our Yorkshire based clients benefitting from another excellent recruiter joining our ranks.”

The business has also grown its technology division significantly in the last six months with Arif Ali, Rachel Davies and Grant Bodie joining the business. Sophie Page and Will Vellios have joined the analytics and agency divisions, respectively.
Forward Role now employs 26 staff.

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Amicus Property Finance has appointed Alan Dorrington, Mark Heckels and Derek Wells as senior underwriters in its Manchester team.

The announcement marks the latest in a raft of senior appointments from the specialist property lender, after Matthew Anderson was appointed to the role of head of servicing & portfolio management in June.

Amicus Property Finance experienced a strong first six months of 2017 having provided more than £500m of shor- term property loans last year, as it further expands its customer base among brokers, professional landlords and developers seeking finance for residential and commercial real estate assets.

The three new senior underwriters join a 15-strong property finance team in Manchester to drive the business’s growth plans in the region.

Dorrington, a chartered banker who has held individual delegated lending mandates of up to £15m, and Heckels have both arrived from Nationwide Building Society.

Wells joins Amicus after 11 years t with Bank of Ireland’s Business Banking team.

Yasin Patel, divisional director at Amicus Property Finance, said: “We have seen fantastic growth over recent periods, not least in the first six months of this year.

“This comes from investing in a highly-experienced team with knowledge of the local business community, and the right expertise to successfully partner with and deliver on our clients’ needs.

“Alan, Mark and Derek’s appointments reflect this approach and I’m confident in the skills and industry knowledge they bring to our team.”