People on the Move: Hill Dickinson; Stenprop; ForViva; Potter Rees Dolan; N8
Lorraine Clinton has joined the board of commercial law firm Hill Dickinson.
She took up her role as a non-executive director with effect from May 20.
Her appointment follows the recent re-election of Hill Dickinson chief executive Peter Jackson for a further four-year term and is part of the firm’s commitment towards improving the agility and efficiency of the business, increasing diversity at senior level and making it more responsive to clients’ needs.
Peter Jackson welcomed Lorraine in her new role, saying: “Lorraine’s appointment adds a valuable breadth of industry experience to our board as we continue on our path towards targeted growth.
“As an ex-FTSE 100 global executive, Lorraine’s skillset and strong record of achievement across both private and public sector will bring an extra dimension to our strategic planning processes, helping to ensure that we remain the law firm of choice across our full range of practice areas.”
He added: “As a business, Hill Dickinson is firmly committed to increasing gender diversity in senior roles right across the firm, including at board level.
“Lorraine’s extensive involvement with organisations such as Northern Power Women and Women on Boards UK will help us accelerate that process, ensuring we more accurately reflect business and society and remain fully responsive to our clients’ changing needs.”
Lorraine Clinton said: “I am delighted to be joining Hill Dickinson at this exciting time in the firm’s growth strategy and I very much look forward to working with the team to achieve their ambitious goals.”
Lorraine has built her executive career in global manufacturing and construction, including 20 years with Pilkington, and is an experienced portfolio chair and non-executive director who holds multi-industry positions across private and public sectors.
“She is the owner and director of Clinton Consultants and chair of construction products business DB Group (Holdings). She is highly experienced in the development and implementation of strategy definition, major change management, commercial and
operational accountability, as well as all aspects of governance and risk.
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Stenprop, the UK multi-let industrial property company, has appointed three people to help develop a market-leading management platform.
James Snowdon has been appointed as tech platform manager, while Sinead Freeman has joined as marketing manager. They will both work across the uK portfolio.
Josh Ramplin
Josh Ramplin has been appointed as customer engagement manager in the North west.
He has a strong background in the property industry through his previous role with Purplebricks, from which he brings transactions and on-site experience alongside a personal approach to his customer-facing role.
Julian Carey, executive property director of Stenprop, said: “James, Josh and Sinead are young, talented individuals who will play an important role in developing our management platform.”
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Social purpose group ForViva has appointed Colette McKune as its new group chief executive.
The group reinvests all of its profits in activities and initiatives that have a positive impact on people. This includes projects aimed at preventing homelessness, improving health, wellbeing and creating new job opportunities.
ForViva Group members include 24,000-home social landlord ForHousing and national property services business Liberty.
Colette, who was awarded an MBE in 2015 for services to the community, said that ForViva would continue to act as a “force for good” that would challenge inequalities, promote diversity and make a difference to people’s lives.
She said: “We believe in a better way to do business. One that gives back and does great things by focusing on positive outcomes and using profits for good.
“I am incredibly proud to take over the role and committed to our core values of passion, openness, respect and trust.
“As we grow, we will do all we can to bring an end to inequality both in the workplace and wider society.”
Colette McKune
An equal rights campaigner, having fought against discrimination during her own career, Colette says that she is determined to continue ForViva’s tradition of continuously improving its approach to inclusion and diversity.
“As a group, we have a duty to create an inclusive and supportive working environment,” she said. “This is very personal to me – as a woman I have rallied against bias and sexism in previous roles.
“My vision is that no-one ever experiences humiliation, barriers or exclusion at ForViva.”
Colette added that said she wanted to deliver “meaningful change to the way homelessness services are run”.
She said: “I firmly believe that, by working together, housing providers and local authority partners can help to tackle one of the greatest challenges faced by our society.”
Colette joined City West Housing Trust in 2008 as director of asset management and became the organisation’s deputy chief executive. In 2015 she became group deputy chief executive of ForViva.
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Serious injury solicitors, Potter Rees Dolan, has announced the promotion of four of its senior solicitors to partnership.
The promotions come at an exciting time for the Manchester-based firm, as it has also recently acquired new office space at No. 2 Commercial Street, Deansgate.
Richard Edwards
New partners include Richard Edwards and Nicola Mepstead, both solicitors within the esteemed Legal 500 ranked personal injury team at Potter Rees Dolan, along with Ruth Wright, head of Court of Protection, and Peter Renshaw, welfare benefits solicitor.
They join existing partners Hugh Potter, Rachel Rees, Helen Dolan, Alison Hartley, Helen Shaw, Jeanne Evans, Gary Herbert, Gill Edwards and Lesley Herbertson.
Nicola Mepstead
Richard Edwards is particularly experienced in dealing with unusual, complicated and high-value personal injury litigation, including bringing claims for those who have suffered brain, orthopaedic and amputation injuries, as well as occupational stress.
As a Solicitor-Advocate and APIL Fellow, he has dealt with claims in the High Court and Court of Appeal. Richard is also a passionate supporter of the rights of accident victims and a number of his articles on the topic have been published in a range of professional journals.
Also specialising in personal injury, Nicola Mepstead joined the firm in 2006 and predominantly deals with brain injury cases of various degrees, from catastrophic to the more subtle, but nevertheless, devastating injuries caused by both accidents and assaults.
Ruth Wright is head of the Court of Protection team and has 13 years of experience acting as a professional Court of Protection Deputy and as a Trustee for both children and adults.
Ruth Wright
She specialised in personal injury and clinical negligence claims after qualifying in 1991 before moving over to Court of Protection work. Ruth works closely with solicitors dealing with personal injury claims and provides expert reports for use by both claimants and defendants.
Peter Renshaw is the firm’s welfare benefits solicitor and has substantial relevant experience. He has always had an interest in disability and equality rights, which stems from family circumstances and led to him becoming a solicitor.
Peter has worked predominantly in the public and charitable sectors in the social welfare law field prior to his appointment at Potter Rees Dolan in 2003.
This included working for six years as a caseworker for the Disability Rights Commission and as well as several years on the national panel of Welfare Benefits Peer Reviewers for the Legal Services Commission.
Peter Renshaw
He works for the firm for four days per week, while also having a second, senior post in the social welfare law field.
Helen Dolan, senior partner and head of clinical negligence, said: “This has been a particularly exciting year for the firm, after recently celebrating a record year of settlements for our clients – £114m total damages – as well as our 21st birthday, we can now announce that we have appointed four senior solicitors to partner and we have acquired fantastic new office space.
“The firm has grown from just two to 53 staff since its beginnings – with the clinical negligence team now six strong, having grown exponentially over recent years. I am proud of where we have got to as a firm and we look forward to further growth and success for our clients over the coming years.”
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The Vice-Chancellor and President of Newcastle University has been chosen as the new chair of the N8 Research Partnership (N8) board of directors.
Prof Chris Day, who has led Newcastle University since January 2017, will replace Prof Mark Smith from August 1. Prof Smith will leave his role at Lancaster University later this year to become Vice-Chancellor at the University of Southampton.
Prof Chris Day
The N8 is the collaboration body for the universities of Durham, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield, and York, and aims to maximise the impact of this research base to enable business innovation and societal transformation.
Prof Day’s responsibilities as chair include the oversight of strategic research collaborations with business and public sector research users, as the N8 continues to build innovation communities around the themes of Clean and Productive Businesses and Child of the North.
Prof Day said: “I am delighted to take this role and continue the work of my predecessors and most recently Mark Smith.
Prof Anthony Hollander
“The strength of N8 lies in our excellence in collaboration, pooling our talent and expertise to help make a real difference to the lives and work of businesses and people in the North of England and beyond.
“Our research strengths and partnerships with business and industry are producing innovative thinking, creating new jobs and contributing to tackling the major issues of our time.”
In further changes to the organisation’s management, Prof Anthony Hollander, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research & Impact at the University of Liverpool, is to take over as chair of N8 Strategic Executive Group (SEG) from Prof Stephen Decent, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at Lancaster University from July 1.
