People: Manufacturer announces promotions; Northcoders expand team; Board member appointed at AESSEAL; and more

A Leeds-based manufacturer of vinyl playing jukeboxes has appointed two women to its senior management team.

Catherine Black has been promoted to business improvement manager, following nine years at the firm. Joanne Waterland has joined as demand and forecasting manager, following 30 years of service at the 41-year-old business.

Waterland began working at the company in 1989 as an office junior, progressing into sales before becoming part of the management team. She said: “I’m thrilled to have been promoted having enjoyed my 30-year long career here.

“I’m excited to support the company with its strategic direction and to ensure that further females enjoy a long and fruitful career alongside me and our talented manufacturers.”

The company said an additional five women have also take up management positions. Sound Leisure is now looking to employ a further three apprentices for its factory wood shop.

Sound Leisure has an 80,000 sq ft manufacturing facility in Crossgates, Leeds. Established in 1978, the family-run business has sold more than 100,000 jukeboxes around the world.

Chris Black, managing director at the firm, said: “Manufacturing is an industry traditionally dominated by men, but at Sound Leisure, women employees are intrinsic to the company and its development.

“With 41 sound years under our belt, we’re keen to ensure we continue to operate as a fair and ethical company and encourage more women into roles with us and help them to progress their careers.

“We strive to be leaders of British manufacturing across the globe. And with many females now entering STEM careers it is important to us to do as much as we can to facilitate the growth and development of young professionals into the industry.”

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A Leeds and Manchester-based centre for teaching technology has added four new members of staff to its team at its two campuses.

The new recruits at Coding bootcamp Northcoders are Shaq Hobbs-Daley, Isabel Maccabee, Nicola Derrick and David Bartlett.

All four are qualified coders and will be responsible for delivering Northcoders’ curriculum, mentoring students on a group and one-to-one basis, as well as researching and staying abreast of industry news, technology trends and changes in tech.

Prior to joining Northcoders, Hobbs-Daley worked in the technology recruitment sector after studying for a Material Science and Engineering degree at Manchester University, while Maccabee previously worked as an Assistant Project Manager for a translations company in London. She holds a degree in Linguistics.

Bartlett is a graduate of Leeds University after completing his Masters in Physics; and Derrick studied Architectural Engineering – again at Leeds University – after which she travelled for a couple of years before working in Retail Management in Australia and New Zealand.

Responding to her new role, Derrick said: “I loved my time at Northcoders and didn’t want to leave so I was thrilled when I was offered the chance to join the teaching team.

“My focus is now on helping to expand the Northcoders community and to develop the best new tech talent.”

Hobbs-Daley added: “I’m really excited about this new phase of my career, as I’ve always had a passion for teaching.

“I’m looking forward to sharing my expertise and helping others to gain a strong understanding of coding.”

Chris Hill – founder of Northcoders – said: “As a business, we want to offer the very best standards of teaching possible.

“Shaq, Isabel, David and Nicola are fantastic coders but also have empathy and patience which are key attributes that we need in our teaching staff. We are delighted they are now part of the Northcoders team.”

Over the past few months, Northcoders has opened a brand new campus in Leeds.

It was selected as one of the country’s brightest tech stars in Creative England’s CE50 list and was named Business of the Year at the 15th Annual Chamber Business Awards.

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AESSEAL, a Rotherham manufacturer which designs and makes mechanical seals and support systems, has appointed former Institution of Mechanical Engineers President Carolyn Griffiths, to its board.

Griffiths, who established and was the first Chief Inspector of the UK’s Rail Accident Investigation Branch, is vocal in her support for change within the engineering profession. She joins AESSEAL as a Non-Executive Director.

She was elected President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 2017 and used the platform to focus on the need to attract more young people to the engineering profession and, in particular, to make engineering more attractive to women.

She is also committed to further developing professional standards in engineering and serves as a board member for the Engineering Council.

In her Institution of Mechanical Engineers presidential address in 2017, Griffiths described how she had been the first woman in all nine of her jobs; in all but two of them she had been the only female engineer.

She said: “I chose a career in engineering simply because that’s what really appealed to me.

“I did not join the industry to overtly campaign for women since at that time, and often as the only woman in my workplace, it was unlikely to have been the best way of bringing about change.

“Instead, my contribution to the gender agenda has been to make sure I succeeded in challenging roles, to leave a positive mark in the hope that my work might make it easier for other female engineers.

“Several decades later it’s very clear that more needs to be done now to enable and encourage more women to join and to progress in engineering.

“With the current exciting changes in technology there is an ever-increasing opportunity for engineers to improve, in some way, the way in which we live our lives. It is a particularly great time to be an engineer.

“AESSEAL is a really exceptional company for its superb products and services, its investment in people and more generally its promotion of engineering. I am extremely happy to join the board.”

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A Leeds architects firm has added three new staff to its technical team, where they will be working on healthcare and residential projects.

New graduates Alex Murray and Harvey Potts have joined P+HS Architects as Architectural Technologists and Daniel Bertenshaw as a Technical Assistant.

The company said Murray and Potts had just received confirmation of “outstanding” results from their BSc (Hons) degrees from Leeds Beckett University.

Technical Director Adrian Taylor said: ‘Technical excellence is valued highly at P+HS Architects.

“We’re delighted to see new talent coming into the industry and pleased to be able to offer appropriate opportunities for them to progress their careers. We wish Alex, Dan and Harvey every success in their new roles.”