People: Property firm boosts board; Host of hires for executive search specialist; and more

Stockport-based chartered surveyors and commercial property firm Fairhurst Buckley has invested for future growth appointing a new property heavyweight to the boardroom.

John MacMillan, who moved to Fairhurst Buckley in November 2020 as a new head of building consultancy, has been promoted to director.

Having started out at neighbouring Derbyshire County Council,MacMillan has more than 20 years’ experience within the commercial property market across a range of occupiers and property owners.

His portfolio includes senior positions within several national property and construction consultancies including Gerald Eve, RLB, Faithful & Gould, and more recently Rapleys.

He was also a director and head of commercial building surveying at Preston-based independent project and building consultants Anderton Gables.

MacMillan is best known for his extensive experience in technical advisory matters including substantial landmark dilapidations claims and pre-acquisition building surveys of individual properties and portfolio transactions up to £50m.

He said: “The director appointment provides me with a great platform to play a key role in the future growth and development of the business.

“My director appointment reaffirms the importance of building consultancy as a key part of the business and one where we have identified great potential for further growth to add to new recent client gains that include DHL, the RSPB and Monkhouse School wear, part of the Banner Group.

“Throughout my career I’ve been able to be flexible enough to amass great sector experience by moving around and working in businesses of different sizes and types, and in different locations. I’m now eager to set down my roots. My new directorship aligned with our ambition for the business, enables me to lead, develop and grow our building consultancy offering to our growing client base.”

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Rowan Executive Search has strengthened its offering with the arrival of four new recruits.

The quartet are associate director Sara Jackson, senior consultant Lexi Graty, executive researcher Jennie Adamson and business support executive Molly Chalfont Pollard.

Their arrival helps to underpin Rowan’s commitment to supporting the growth of its North West clients, and comes after strategic investor LCap Group acquired a stake in the business last year.

Rowan works with business owners to secure top talent to drive their growth. It specialises in strengthening the boards and leadership teams of privately and family-owned SMEs, as well as those backed by private equity.

The company, which has offices in Manchester and Chorley, helps clients to shape their goals and board structures and to then secure the right talent to accelerate their transformation and growth, and ultimately to crystallise their position.

It focuses on recruiting chief executives, chairmen, other board level directors and senior executives for finance, sales and marketing, operations, HR and tech roles across sectors ranging from e-commerce, technology and life sciences to logistics and distribution, infrastructure and manufacturing.

Clients include e-commerce fulfilment business Fulfilmentcrowd, Clubhouse Golf, SpaMedica, Eque2, Utiligroup, Lakelovers, MPM Products and Made Tech, which floated on the stock market last year.

Rowan also works closely with private equity clients, including LDC, NorthEdge Capital, Pitalia Capital, Maven Capital Partners, Mercia, WestBridge and Apiary Capital.

Paul Waite, founder and managing director of Rowan, said: “These are significant appointments which reflect our continued commitment to our expanding north west SME and private equity customer base.

“The expertise that all four bring across finance, operations and sales will further support company founders looking for leadership talent to drive business performance. We are thrilled to welcome them to the group and look forward to seeing their careers flourish with us.”

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The Insights Family, the Manchester-based company which specialises in kids and family market intelligence, has continued to expand with the appointment of 11 new staff including the appointment of Will Pearce as the company’s new managing director.

Pearce has extensive senior leadership experience and a proven track record of scaling businesses, with a strong background in the data and marketing industries.

Pearce was formerly operations director at ActiveWin Marketing, a position he held for seven years, following three years at IGT as marketing manager. His experience in fast growth businesses and his customer focused nature and makes him well equipped to drive the company to the next level, and he will report directly into The Insights Family founder and CEO, Nick Richardson.

Richardson said: “I am delighted to welcome Will to The Insights Family as managing director. 2021 was our third year of treble digit growth, and our aspirations for 2022 are even more significant so ensuring we have the structure to allow our incredible team to flourish and develop at industry pace is key. I believe that Will and our Senior Management Team will continue to inspire our team to deliver even greater things for our incredible roster of clients and partners we are proud and privileged to work with.”

The company has continued to further expand across all departments, with the team growing to a team of 67, with a further 22 roles being actively recruited for. In the company’s research teams; Lucy Keefe and Stavros Triseliotis joined the Audience Insights team as Research Executive and Senior Research Executive respectively. The Commercial team grew with the addition of Jade Ward as Senior Operations Executive, Nkiru Anisiobi as Business Development Manager, Mélany Pascal as Business Development Executive, Soafyaan Zia as Account Manager and Tanvi Kulkarni as Graphic Designer. The development and data science teams have welcomed Tushar Palawat and Saud Khan as Junior Data Scientists and Will Watkins as Junior Developer.

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One of UK and Ireland’s largest independent digital marketing agencies, Mediaworks, has made further senior appointments to spearhead its expansion in the North West of England.

Manchester-based Chris Jevons has joined Mediaworks as account director. He joins at a time where Mediaworks has substantially grown its client portfolio in the region, partnering the likes of Leisure Lakes Bikes, who were recently acquired by JD Sports, Johnnie Johnson Housing and United Utilities on a range of digital transformation projects.

Jevons, who will lead client services for Mediaworks’ North West-based clients, has an extensive background in digital performance across various channels, most recently as account director at central Manchester’s Big Brand Ideas.

He said: “Manchester’s agency scene is as vibrant as ever and I’m excited to be able to be at the centre of such a well-established agency’s growth in this area. The vision and ambition for Mediaworks is one that was too good to ignore. The agency is now closing in on 200 staff across its sites in the UK and Ireland and I’m thrilled to be at the forefront of that growth here in Manchester.”

Brett Jacobson, CEO and founder of Mediaworks, added: “Bringing someone of Chris’s standing is a statement of our intent for Mediaworks and our footprint across the UK. I’m thrilled to have such an experienced and well-connected individual on board. We see huge potential for increasing Mediaworks’ presence in the city and have more exciting announcements on the way as we strengthen our position in Manchester.”