People on the Move: Elan Homes; Clarke Willmott; Odgers Berndtson; Fieldfisher; CircleLoop
After four years at the cutting edge of new home sales, Venita Jones has taken on a new role as field sales manager for Elan Homes.
Prior to joining Elan, Venita worked for a volume builder based in Bangor, where she sold around 200 homes.
The sales success she achieved helped her earn the title of sales consultant of the year for the housebuilder’s North Wales and North West operation.
“I’d achieved so much with my previous employer, but wanted a fresh challenge so when the field sales manager job with Elan was advertised I saw it as a great opportunity to make that first step into management,” Venita explained.
“The idea of working for a smaller company appealed to me. It’s like being part of a family, as everyone is very approachable.”
Venita previously worked as a hairdresser, but a friend who worked in new homes sales encouraged her to change careers saying she would be perfect for the role.
“For a successful career in new homes sales you need to be versatile and able to accommodate and interact with customers as each one is different. You need to know your product, what’s available, what’s included in the specification and have knowledge about the local area, too.”
Venita works closely with Elan’s sales director Marie Morris to oversee sales executives across developments, including Aigburth Grange, South Liverpool; Argoed Gardens and Kinnerton Meadows, both near Mold; Old Quay Meadow, between Parkgate and Neston; and Westminster Place, near Chester.
Niche developer Elan was established in 2008 and now employs around 100 people across a variety of disciplines, roles and professions in offices in Ellesmere Port and Bristol and on sites across the country.
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National law firm Clarke Willmott is expanding its family department in Manchester with the hire of Emily Barcilon from Myersons, Altrincham.
Emily deals with the full range of family law issues that arise following divorce and separation, including financial claims, cohabitation disputes and child arrangements.
She has experience of dealing with hidden assets, complex and high value financial claims and where there is a pressing financial need to claim against a spouse or former partner.
Emily Barcilon and Chris Longbottom
Emily also acts for parents and grandparents in matters dealing with the day-to-day arrangements for children, cases where there are welfare concerns, or where there are allegations of abuse or other issues affecting the whole family.
Partner Chris Longbottom, who leads the family law team in Manchester, said: “We are very pleased to welcome Emily to the firm. Her strong training and local background will be a great platform for her to build upon with us.
“Her appointment, following the recent growth of the Manchester office including the addition of the very experienced private client (wills and estates) team, is another demonstration of the firm’s commitment in the North and the national network of experts providing top quality and market-leading advice to a range of individuals for their personal legal needs.”
The Manchester office of Clarke Willmott has undergone significant expansion this year, with a move into new office space at 55 Spring Gardens and the appointment of a range of new partners and teams complementing the firm’s national offering and service lines.
Clarke Willmott is a national law firm with seven offices across the country in Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, London, Manchester, Southampton and Taunton.
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Executive search firm Odgers Berndtson has appointed Duncan Hoggett to lead the regional CFO practice.
Duncan’s primary focus is the appointment of finance directors and CFO’s across all sectors in a range of businesses in the commercial sector across the Midlands and North of the UK.
Duncan Hoggett
Odgers Berndtson has offices throughout the UK as well as more than 50 offices in 31 countries. The company is privately-owned and has been operating for more than 40 years in the UK.
The CFO practice is among the top three in the UK executive search market and handles nearly 20% of the firm’s assignments each year.
It is also involved with searches for non-executive directorships when the requirement is to appoint a candidate with senior finance experience.
Duncan joined Odgers Berndtson in 2010, initially working within the interim practice before moving across to the industrial practice.
During his time with Odgers interim he has partnered extensively with the CFO practice on a number of financial leadership appointments.
Prior to joining Odgers, Duncan worked with two large financial recruitment specialists in Leeds and London.
Duncan said: “I am delighted to be joining an outstanding team with an excellent reputation for delivering high quality work.
“Odgers Berndtson’s CFO practice is uniquely placed amongst the large international executive search firms with a long-standing commitment to the regions and a well-established office network in Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.”
Mark Freebairn, partner, head of CFO practice, said: “We’re excited that Duncan is joining the team to lead our activity in the regions. Duncan has worked extensively in finance and has enjoyed great success within the interim and search business to date.”
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Fieldfisher, already boasting a strong clinical negligence team in Manchester, led by Jenny Urwin, has further boosted its practice by recruiting Lindsay Holt.
Lindsay, a senior clinical negligence solicitor at Slater and Gordon Lawyers in Manchester, will be joining the Fieldfisher team shortly as a partner.
Lindsay Holt
She has extensive experience in clinical negligence claims across a range of areas of medicine.
She specialises in areas such as obstetric, spinal and surgical claims, gynaecological injuries and delayed diagnosis, particularly of cancer.
Jenny Urwin, head of the Fieldfisher Manchester clinical negligence team, said: “I am very pleased that my former colleague, Lindsay Holt, will be joining our growing medical negligence practice in Manchester.
“Lindsay is very well respected in the clinical negligence field and will be a strong asset as we continue to expand the clinical negligence practice in the North West.
“She shares our values, is committed to clients and has cutting-edge expertise.”
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CircleLoop, the cloud-based phone system for business, has announced that former Tech Nation lead, Richard Gregory, has joined its team as it looks to further drive growth in the heart of the digital and tech community.
The appointment comes as CircleLoop revealed that it has tripled headcount over the past 12 months, with imminent plans for the creation of a large number of new roles in Manchester and across the UK over the coming months.
With more than 20 years’ in the tech and digital industry, Richard was previously managing director of digital agency Latitude, director of Tech Nation and a Manchester Digital council member.
Hailing from Ramsbottom, the Lancashire town in which CircleLoop was conceived and initially developed, he currently advises a number of scale-ups, including Ruler Analytics, Ash.tv and Fluid Digital.
Richard said: “I have known Damian Hanson and David Hague in the technology start-up scene for several years, and I truly believe that, in CircleLoop, they continue to build a product which will become internationally adopted as a replacement to the norm in the telecoms market.
“I was attracted to supporting their drive and vision for the business and I think that CircleLoop will go from strength to strength in the coming years as businesses adopt cloud and digital products across their entire business.”
CircleLoop’s intuitive desktop and mobile apps enable businesses to finally say goodbye to the complicated phone systems of old.
Delivered in the same way as other cloud-based software, such as CRM, email and accounting platforms, CircleLoop provides instant, self-service control of all phone numbers, users and features in a simple, no-contract model.
Its growing list of powerful integrations also hugely improve team productivity and reduce unnecessary costs.
CircleLoop co-founder, Damian Hanson, said: “We’ve enjoyed significant user growth across the UK in the past year, especially in the North West, and with Richard’s support we look forward to building further relationships locally, and nationally, as we continue to scale our business. To have someone of Richard’s pedigree on our team is fantastic.”
Richard Gregory
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