People: Barclays; Lovell Partnerships

Barclays has appointed Jon Corbett as its head of SMEs for the Central England region.

The Central England SME team is 94 strong with office locations across the East Midlands, West Midlands, Black Country, Staffordshire and Shropshire.

Corbett, who has worked at Barclays for 33 years, has a wealth of experience across both corporate and business banking. Having previously led teams within both the mid and large corporate arena, he has more recently been leading a team working with SME Businesses across the South East Midlands and Cambridgeshire region.

He said: “I am incredibly proud of the opportunity to help Midlands small and medium businesses grow and thrive across the region I am so passionate about. Having been predominantly based in South East Midlands for a number of years, I look forward to getting to know the regional business community across the wider Midlands region in the coming months.”

Chantel Cresswell and Rebekah Bacon

Housing firm and provider of residential construction and regeneration developments Lovell Partnerships has added to its team in the Midlands with the addition of two new assistant partnership managers – Rebekah Bacon and Chantel Cresswell.

The pair join as assistant partnership managers to support the company’s key focus on developing partnerships with housing authorities, local authorities, and other businesses in the housing sector to bring new housing schemes to the market. Bacon’s role will cover the East Midlands, while Cresswell’s will focus on the West Midlands, with both looking to build relationships, manage partnerships, and ultimately accelerate provision of multi-tenure housing in the region.

Simon Wingate, regional partnerships director at Lovell Partnerships, said: “Rebekah and Chantel are both joining the team at a really exciting and busy time for the business and will be focused on developing existing and creating new partnerships across the housing sector.

“We truly believe that our partnership approach with local authorities and housing association partners, is the key in delivering multi-tenure housing developments at scale and pace while creating sustainable, cohesive and confident new communities. We therefore are keen to continue to strengthen existing partnerships and build new relationships to drive this message forward and continue our excellent work.”