People: Building society hires chief commercial officer; Expansion for law firm; and more

Yorkshire Building Society Group has announced the appointment of David Morris as chief commercial officer, subject to regulatory approval.

Morris has more than 12 years’ experience in financial services and product management, most recently as head of product at Coventry Building Society.

He began his career at Citigroup and has also worked for private bank Arbuthnot Latham and the Commercial Bank of Qatar.

He is due to join Yorkshire Building Society in June, where he will lead the innovation, development and on-going management of the society’s mortgages and savings products, its marketing activities and its commercial strategy.

Mike Regnier, chief executive of Yorkshire Building Society, said: “David’s strong track record of driving commercial performance in financial services, as well as his appreciation of the mutual sector, made him a compelling candidate for this key role.

“I am confident that David’s wealth of experience and expertise in this area will be invaluable in enabling us to achieve our key strategic objectives of helping our members to realise their financial goals while delivering good long-term value to our membership and maintaining the group’s financial strength.”

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Expanding niche commercial practice MD Law LLP has continued its strategic growth with the appointment of lawyer Kelly Wharin.

The Sheffield law firm specialises in business recovery, insolvency, commercial litigation, dispute resolution, commercial work and debt recovery.
Wharin graduated from the University of Sheffield in 2003 and has over a decade of experience in litigation, largely as a member of the litigation and disputes resolution team at hlw.

MD Law is led by Matthew Dixon, who said: “We are delighted that Kelly has joined us. She has an impressive record of working with companies and individuals and dealing with a wide range of disputes and litigation.

“Kelly is regularly instructed by both corporate and individual clients in high value litigation and has experience in contractual disputes, shareholder and partnership claims, debt recovery and other areas including professional negligence, defamation and contentious probate.”

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The Northern Pool, one of Britain’s largest public investment funds, has appointed Ian Greenwood as its new chair.

Greenwood will lead the £46bn investment pool, which has been formed from the combined assets of the Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and Merseyside local government pension schemes (LGPS).

He is currently the deputy chair of the West Yorkshire Pension Fund and deputy chair of the Local Authority Pension Fund Forum, which represents 75 local government pension funds with assets of over £200bn. He takes up his new role with immediate effect.

Greenwood replaces Cllr Kieran Quinn, the former chairman of the Greater Manchester Pension Fund who unexpectedly died at Christmas.

His appointment comes as the Northern Pool finalises plans to form an asset pool, which will represent around a fifth of total LGPS assets.

Greenwood said: “I’m delighted to have been asked to take up this role. It is a huge honour and privilege, and one that I take very seriously.

“Kieran will be a hard act to follow, but like him I firmly believe our approach will enable us to ensure we remain the most cost-effective and efficient pool in the local government pension scheme, underpinned by a simple but effective democratic governance structure.

“This will ensure the Northern Pool maintains the good investment returns and low costs that have resulted in low
contribution rates for the benefit of taxpayers.”