Appointments: Law firm grows education team; New representatives for business leaders group; and more

LAW firm Stone King has strengthened its newly-established education team with more senior appointments.

Education employment lawyer Polly O’Malley joins the firm’s Leeds office as a senior associate from Ward Hadaway.

Ms O’Malley specialises in all aspects of employment law, with niche expertise in advising the education sector on a wide variety of strategic, contentious and regulatory issues. She advises academy trusts and schools on staff and employment-related issues including industrial disputes, restructure and equality issues.

Stone King also welcomes education lawyer Louise Cazan, who joins the Leeds team as a senior associate after more than eight years’ experience of advising on education schemes.

Ms Cazan has particular expertise in academy conversions, transfers and restructures, as well as offering ongoing operational advice to educational organisations.  

Also joining Stone King’s Leeds office as a legal secretary and office administrator is Lynsey Olbison, who previously worked for intellectual property law firm EIP Europe.

Roger Inman, head of Stone King’s education group, said: “We are pleased to welcome Polly, Louise and Lynsey to our Leeds office, which we opened recently to cement our position as national leaders in education law.   
 
“Both Polly and Louise have great experience advising the education sector and I’m sure their skills will be much in demand among schools and trusts across the north of England and further afield.”

:::

LEEDS’ business support group has some new faces on its main policy-making body.

The city’s Chamber of Commerce elected new business representatives onto its leadership group at its annual election meeting earlier this month.  The group meets bi-monthly to focus on business needs and concerns in the city, and how to lobby for improvements.

Other partners such as the local authority sit on the group, which is chaired by president Gerald Jennings.

The meeting confirmed the election or re-election of:

Adam Beaumont                             AQL
Amanda Beresford                          Shulmans (new)
Helen Green                                    Town Centre Securities
Ian Bilyard                                        Leeds College of Building
Marcus Mills                                     The Big Word (new)
Nik Pratap                                         Brewster Pratap (new)
Hanif Malik OBE                               Hamara HLC (co-opted)

Ms Beresford, partner and head of planning at Shulmans, said: “I am delighted to be joining the leadership group. I am looking forward to helping the Chamber continue as the voice of the business community and working with others towards the best possible future for Leeds – a city I have studied, worked or lived in all my adult life.”

:::

RECRUITMENT professional David Winterburn, who heads up executive search and selection business Burns Tempest, has been appointed as a Fellow at the Institute of Directors (IoD).

Four per cent of the IoD’s Yorkshire members have fellowship status, compared to 15% nationally.  The appointment comes after Mr Winterburn recently completed a maximum six-year term on the IoD’s National Council.  

IoD Members are invited to become Fellows based on their career experience and contribution to business after they attain the IoD’s Diploma in Company Direction and become chartered directors.  Fellows are required to have been a company director for at least five years and at some point during this period, the entity must have had an annual turnover or budget that exceeds £10m.

Mr Winterburn said: “I became a member of the IoD in 1999 and have always found it hugely valuable.  It’s a great way of meeting likeminded professionals from a vast range of industries and offers a superb business network throughout the UK and beyond.  In the world of executive search and selection, it’s also vitally important to be able to identify leaders, who can influence change within a corporate organisation, and I continually meet these people through the IoD.  

“To achieve Fellowship is a great honour because it’s the highest possible grade of membership with very stringent criteria attached to it.  There are also very few Fellows here in Yorkshire so it’s great to be helping to rectify this.”