People on the Move: Hill Dickinson; Love Energy Savings; Principal Insurance; Arcis Biotechnology; Hattrick; Arbuthnot
Commercial law firm Hill Dickinson has announced the expansion of its restructuring team with the appointment of legal director Julie Agnew.
Julie joins from DWF, where she worked for 12 years, becoming widely known across the North West restructuring community for her work in non-contentious corporate insolvency.
Her experience includes working for insolvency practitioners across the North East and North West, banks and funders, including asset-based lenders in maximising recoveries.
Hill Dickinson head of restructuring, Paul Spence, welcomed Julie to the team saying: “Julie’s experience in non-contentious corporate insolvency and the reputation she has already built across the North West will add valuable capacity to our growing Manchester team.
“The fact that Julie also has direct experience of working in finance and industry prior to becoming a lawyer gives her an insight into the challenges of running a business that clients really appreciate and respond to. We’re delighted that she has joined the team.”
Hill Dickinson’s specialist restructuring team undertakes work for a wide range of clients nationally and internationally. The team provides a full service to insolvency practitioners in relation to formal corporate and personal insolvency appointments dealing with both contentious and transactional assignments as well as providing strategic advisory and turnaround advice to corporate stakeholders.
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Price comparison expert Love Energy Savings has announced two major appointments to its senior management team.
Phil Windas has been named as chief marketing officer, while Steve Evans is the new chief financial officer at the Bolton-based firm.
Chief executive Phil Foster welcomed the new appointments and said they were “perfectly timed”.
He said: “Phil and Steve have come from great organisations and have both got great track records. We are delighted to have them on board.
“The timing of the appointments is perfect and they are both very clear that they want to help grow the business.”
Phil Windas
Hull-born Windas garnered 10 years’ marketing experience in London with high-profile firms including Sainsbury’s, Premier Inn and the Gala Coral Group.
He returned to the North West in 2012 to head up marketing for We Buy Any Car and has since held senior roles for SwitchMyBusiness.com, Help-Link and HomeServe, as well as carrying out consulting work.
Windas said: “I’m really looking forward to the challenges ahead.
“The business has gone through a rapid period of growth and it’s fantastic to join the team and help fuel further growth.”
Evans, born in Oldham, has spent his entire career in the North West and has been a finance director for the past nine years.
His appointment comes after five years in financial services. The previous decade was spent in the legal sector, both in consumer and in a top 50 law firm.
Steve Evans
Evans also has experience in manufacturing, travel and tourism and healthcare services.
He said: “The culture here is excellent and there is a great growth opportunity within the sector and within the business generally.”
Love Energy Savings had a £25m turnover in 2018 with a customer base of around 70,000. The target is 160,000 customers by 2021, with a £10m profit also within its sights.
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Manchester-based Principal Insurance has recruited highly-experienced financial services management information professional Lyndsey Gilbey as MI Analyst.
Gilbey boasts more than 20 years’ experience in the field and joins the specialist broking group from Chase Templeton, the health insurance broker at which she was management information officer.
Lyndsey Gilbey
She began her career as a customer advisor with Carole Nash Insurance in 2001, with promotions seeing the broker appointing her as a senior MI analyst three years later. She held that post for more than six years before joining Wave Lending in a similar role.
In 2008 she was appointed as an MI analyst at Barclaycard. She spent more than five years with the multinational credit card and payment services provider, her expertise supporting its operational readiness and complaints performance, analysis improvement functions.
In her new role she will report to Principal’s head of finance, Stephen Bolton. Her responsibilities will include analysis of call centre performance and finance data to assist the specialist insurance group in maximising operational efficiencies and service levels.
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Arcis Biotechnology, the nucleic acid sample preparation solution provider, has appointed Prof Steve Howell as non-executive chairman of its board of directors.
Steve takes over the position from Paul Foulger, who was serving as chairman on an interim basis on behalf of the board.
Prof Howell has more than 20 years’ life science commercialisation experience, supporting companies’ development and profitability.
He founded Innova Partnerships in 2006, where he has been instrumental in creating more than a dozen life science start-ups and raised in excess of £100m in financing.
Prof Steve Howell
Steve oversaw the exit of Innova Biosciences in 2016-2017 to SYGNIS AG, Innova Partnerships’ second exit.
He has held positions at Unilever, and was previously director of business development at Alere Inc and research director at Unipath. In 2015 he was made visiting professor of commercial innovation at King’s College, London.
Prof Howell said: “The Arcis sample preparation technology has enormous potential across many application areas, including diagnostics and genetic understanding. I am excited to be joining the team as we build the business to bring products to market that will have real and positive impact on patient quality of life.”
Paul Foulger, non-executive director, said: “We have an exciting opportunity to build a world-leading and highly valuable biotech based on Arcis’ current technology platform and future ambitions. Steve’s considerable experience, expertise and network will make a significant contribution to achieving that goal and delivering maximum value to shareholders.”
Chief executive Peter Whitehurst said: “I would like to thank Paul for his time as interim chairman, and for working with the executive directors to bring Steve in for the next exciting phase of development at Arcis.”
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Manchester-based content marketing agency, Hattrick, has appointed Paul Myerscough as head of content and outreach.
Paul joins the Hattrick team from his role as global director of content at Stein IAS, where he was responsible for the agency’s global offering across PR, social media and content marketing.
During his 12 years at Stein IAS, Paul led on campaign planning and execution for multi-national B2B brands across sectors including construction, engineering and technology.
In his new role at Hattrick, Paul will drive the content arm of the agency, working closely with clients to develop tailored strategies and ensuring the consistent delivery of engaging content that ‘seeks beyond the obvious’.
Paul Myerscough
He will also collaborate on new business development and be responsible for shaping Hattrick’s campaign-oriented demand and lead generation function.
Paul said: “My focus is on helping clients elevate the quality of their content marketing and how it’s deployed through the latest marketing technologies.
“B2B is awash with agencies that ‘play’ at content marketing, but very few of them excel at bringing together subject matter expertise, campaign-led creativity and effective go-to-market planning.
“Hattrick, on the other hand, has a results-led, insights driven approach which caters really well to brands that are looking to differentiate across paid, owned and earned media.”
Managing director, Malin Cunningham, said: “Paul brings a wealth of experience and expertise to Hattrick both on the client-facing and the content side. His unmatched understanding of content strategy and go-to-market planning will undoubtedly deliver measurable ROI for clients and drive growth for the agency.”
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Arbuthnot Specialist Finance has appointed Molly Markey and Chloe Skae to the relationship management team.
Chloe, who joins us as a relationship manager for London and the South East will be based in Arbuthnot Latham’s London office.
Molly joins the Manchester office as relationship executive. She was previously at RBS and Unity Trust Bank.
Molly will leverage her experience and industry expertise to drive development of ASFL’s regional presence across the North West.
Mark Heckels, ASFL’s head of sales, said: “I am pleased to welcome Chloe Skae and Molly Markey to the team. These appointments demonstrate our commitment to strengthening our relationship-led service and driving our presence both in London and across the country.”
