People on the move: Mitchell Charlesworth; No Brainer; Fletchers; HW–Global; Clough & Willis; Slater and Gordon; Harrison Drury
NORTH West accountancy firm Mitchell Charlesworth has strengthened its growing tax team with the appointment of Jennifer Curtis as corporate tax manager.
Curtis will be based across the company’s Chester, Liverpool and Manchester offices, and take responsibility for corporation tax reviews.
She will also play a key role in assisting with the firm’s increasing volume of research and development tax work.
Mitchell Charlesworth tax partner Tim Adcock said: “Jennifer is a strong addition to our tax team.
She has many attributes including extensive corporation tax experience and specialist expertise in R&D work. Her positive, progressive and ambitious outlook make her an ideal fit for our tax team.
Curtis said: “What really attracted me to Mitchell Charlesworth was the opportunity to take on more responsibility and make the role my own.
“I will be largely involved in reviewing corporation tax computations and the preparation of research and development claims. The firm’s broad reach across the region will enable me to support many different clients of the practice.”
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CREATIVE PR and communications agency No Brainer has expanded its team with the appointment of a new account executive.
Hannah Jones joins the Warrington-based firm as a PR, social media and content marketing executive, having previously worked as part of Warrington Borough Council’s press office and at Liverpool-based PR agency Kenyons.
The 22-year-old, from Warrington, will split her time between the No Brainer office and university as she completes the final year of a degree in public relations and marketing at Manchester Metropolitan University Business School.
Lee Cullen, director and co-founder of No Brainer, said: “Hannah has got a fantastic future ahead of her and we’re really pleased that she’s chosen to join our growing team. She’s already got some great experience and her skillset will add a new dimension to our business.
“We think it’s crucial to invest in the region’s brightest young talent and in Hannah we think we’ve found exactly that.”
No Brainer was founded by Gary Jenkins and Lee Cullen in 2015 and now works with a range of nationally acclaimed brands including MBNA, HomeServe and Sale Sharks.
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FLETCHERS Solicitors, a serious injury and clinical negligence law firm, has bolstered its dedicated clinical negligence team with the appointment of three senior solicitors.
Lynne Ainsworth, Nina Sahu and Christian Beadell have joined Southport-based Fletchers as senior solicitors within in the clinical negligence department.
Ainsworth will be a supervisor within the firm’s specialist clinical negligence serious injury team, which deals with high-value, catastrophic injury cases.
She brings with her more than15 years’ experience. She joins from Slater and Gordon where she was a senior associate in clinical negligence for the past 10 years.
Sahu, who is on the Law Society Clinical Negligence Panel, also joins from Slater and Gordon, with upwards of 15 years’ experience in dealing with clinical negligence claims. In her new role, she will be working in a team specialising in the progression of litigated cases.
Beadell, who was listed in the 2016 Legal 500 as a solicitor that ‘goes more than the extra mile for clients’, has more than 20 years’ legal experience and is currently a panel solicitor in the Group B Step Support Group, a charity dedicated to eradicating group B Strep infections in babies.
He has extensive experience in group action cases and is a member of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL). At Fletchers, Christian will be supervising a team within the clinical negligence department.
CEO Ed Fletcher said the appointments were all part of ensuring that Fletchers meets its company objectives.
He said: “Investment in the team is indicative of our commitment to grow Fletchers in line with our vision of becoming a top 100 Law Firm by 2018. The appointments of even more high-quality talent will ensure we can continue to provide best-in-class consultancy to our clients in this complex are of personal injury.”
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MANCHESTER headhunter HW – Global Talent Partner has announced the appointment of its new chief executive Spencer Jinks.
He takes over from founding director John Wakeford, who had headed the business for six years and will now concentrate on growing the firm’s financial services and chair & NED practices.
Jinks has been with the executive search consultancy for almost a decade, having joined as a director in 2007 after six years as executive recruitment director at the Caudwell Group.
He will continue to lead HW’s Consumer division, which operates in more than 70 countries throughout Europe, Latin and North America, South Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific, and boasts global relationships including Mars, Kellogg’s and GSK Consumer Healthcare among its impressive client base.
The father-of-three, from Wilmslow, explained the move: “It is evolution rather than revolution as far as the business is concerned, ensuring all the directors play to our key strengths.
“Over the past decade we have developed a broad range of both local and global clients across various industry sectors and specialisms, and thanks to John’s leadership we are on a firm financial footing, with the business well positioned to further invest and push on.
“We are now moving in to a new phase with an emphasis more on brand communication, nurturing global client relationships, building deeper knowledge in the digital and big data arena, whilst investing heavily in systems and developing core talent within the business. We are also pursuing potential merger and acquisition opportunities to help us achieve our ambitious growth strategy.
“John has a real passion for the Chair & NED market and consumer financial services and after six years combining these with the CEO role will now be able to commit more time to developing these key strategic areas of the business.”
Jinks, who spends the majority of his time working with global clients, locally and internationally, will lead the business in the UK working between the Manchester, Leeds and London offices with John Wakeford and fellow founding director Adrian Hitchenor.
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BURY and Bolton-based law Clough & Willis has announced Karen Yates – an associate solicitor in its private client team – has successfully completed the Society of Trust and Estate Practioners (STEP) Diploma.
The diploma is a highly prestigious industry standard that develops a practical understanding of the law and the procedures involved in trust and estate administration, tax and accounting.
Each of the four modules – Administration of Trusts; Administration of Estates; Taxation of Trusts & Estates and Trust & Estate Accounting – required Yates to undertake individual rounds of six months of home study followed by written exams.
Holding the STEP Diploma means she can help her clients in various ways including being able to provide detailed knowledge and advice on the most up-to-date issues affecting trusts and estates.
Yates said: “After lots of hard work I am delighted that I have completed the STEP Diploma. It’s certainly a defining moment in my career, but I’m now focussed on using this qualification to benefit my clients so they see me as a trusted advisor with the very best expertise in the area.”
Shefali Talukdar, managing partner of Clough & Willis, said: “As a firm, we firmly believe in nurturing and developing talent from within so Karen’s achievement is a real testament to that.”
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SLATER and Gordon is expanding its business legal services team with the addition of seven senior solicitors in response to strong demand for specialist business focused services.
The new appointments widen the breadth of expertise available, ranging from dispute resolution, commercial property, business regulatory defence and compliance and professional conduct issues.
Anna Willetts joins from Dentons and specialises in defending both corporate and individual clients accused of breaching a range of environmental regulations including those governing nuisance issues such as noise dust and odour.
Victoria Philipson, who has been practicing with the firm since 2015 in its personal injury department, has now moved over into the dispute resolution team in Chester, focusing on contract and property disputes.
Victoria Jones joins the Chester team from Knights Professional Services and specialises in commercial property, in particular, the dental, finance and charity sectors.
Steve Kuncewicz, who joins from Bermans, specialises in contentious and non-contentious intellectual property, media and social media legal issues, and works primarily in the creative, film and television sectors.
The recruits follow the appointment earlier this year of Tessa Leonard to the commercial property team in Manchester and Mark Alexander to the commercial property team based in our Preston office.
Mark Alexander joins from Vincents Solicitors and has practiced in Preston for more than 10 years, acting for property developers, investors and banks in commercial property. Tessa has a very strong background in development and regeneration projects which enhances our offering to our developer clients.
Stephen Lintott, head of business legal services at Slater and Gordon, said: “Our vision has always been to bring together our commercial property, company/commercial, regulatory and business employment and commercial litigation teams, to form a new business legal services group. This gives our clients access to a team of leading specialists in each area of the law.
“We are delighted to welcome our new team members as part of the growth of our business legal services offering.”
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LANCASHIRE and Cumbria law firm Harrison Drury has appointed its first ever in-house marketing and business development manager as it embarks on its latest phase of growth.
Experienced marketer Kris Midgely, a specialist in business and professional services, will head up all marketing and business development activity at Harrison Drury, which has offices across the region.
A key part of Midgeley’s role will be implementing a new customer relationship management system to help the firm maintain strong relationships with clients and contacts, as well as helping to develop the Harrison Drury service in key sectors and locations.
John Chesworth, managing director at Harrison Drury, said: “In the last six years we’ve gone from one office and 16 staff to five offices and 90 staff.
“Having become a much larger firm with clients across the UK, we needed someone who could co-ordinate all our marketing and business development activity in a more structured and strategic way.
“Kris has proven experience of helping growing businesses like ours to achieve that growth in a smarter way. Working with our internal teams and external marketing providers, he will help communicate our vision, how we can help businesses grow, and why we’re on the UK’s best employers.”
Midgely, who is from Chorley, said: “Harrison Drury is a successful firm with a great ethos. I want to support those values by spending time listening to clients, staff and professional contacts to find out more about what they value about their relationship with Harrison Drury. We will use this information to shape our offering and the way we communicate with those audiences.”
In 2016, Harrison Drury, which has offices in Preston, Garstang, Lancaster, Kendal and Clitheroe, was included in the Sunday Times list of the The Best 100 Small Companies to Work For.
