People: Kingdom Group; Leonard Curtis; PwC; Bibby Financial Services; Medicines Discovery Catapult; CBRE
Newton-le-Willows-based Kingdom is continuing to invest in new senior roles, with the appointment of a new sales lead campaign manager and communications manager.
Stuart Andrews takes on the sales lead campaign manager role. He will be working with the management team of each company within Kingdom Group to help ensure they each achieve their growth ambitions. He joins the company with more than 25 years’ senior sales experience in multimedia, fuel storage, healthcare, and energy.
Michele Hammond has been appointed as the group’s new communications manager and will be leading and directing both the internal and external communications strategies to improve reach and impact. She has more than 20 years’ experience in B2B marketing, marketing communications and sales across a wide variety of sectors, including healthcare, construction, and education.
Stuart said: “An important part of my role will be helping make sure that we make the most of our breadth of existing services to identify opportunities that already exist within the group.”
Michele said: “It is just such a great time to be joining Kingdom. With the group continuing to grow, clear and good communication and messages are absolutely business critical.”
Mark Wallace, Kingdom Group director, welcomed the due, saying: “Their experience and wealth of knowledge will help tremendously in the roles they’ve taken on here at Kingdom and we know they’re going to do a brilliant job.”
The appointments of Stuart and Michele comes after several new appointments by Kingdom so far in 2022 to achieve its UK and overseas growth ambitions and to expand existing group centres that support the delivery of a best-in-class service.
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Gary Cain has been appointed head of funding for Leonard Curtis as part of a new management structure that has been put in place to accelerate growth.
Leonard Curtis is a privately-owned professional services provider of corporate restructuring and insolvency, funding and legal solutions, employing more than 250 people across 21 offices including London, Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds as well as the Channel Islands.
Gary Cain
The commercial finance brokerage, Reach, previously led by Gary, will now fall under the Leonard Curtis brand and become a key service pillar for the group employing specialist funding and debt advisory expertise.
Working with the executive board, Gary will be joined by regionally-based colleagues looking after restructuring and insolvency across four UK territories and a divisional head looking after legal services.
He will be instrumental in the delivery of ambitious strategic goals for the group which recently announced its plans to double in size by 2025.
Gary said: “The Reach brand has really established itself in the last eight years and I am very proud of what it has achieved. There is a good understanding of our links to the wider group so it makes absolute sense now to integrate with the Leonard Curtis brand.
“Whilst there are three distinct areas of restructuring, legal services and funding, we are all one team. By operating under one brand we will demonstrate a consistent, multi-disciplined approach and this is the key to expanding our services and helping more business owners with the required debt and funding advice in the SME/mid-market space.”
Confirming the new structure, CEO Dan Booth said: “I am delighted to be working with such an experienced leadership team and looking forward to seeing what we can do. We are confident we can significantly scale this business and now we have clarity – by region and division – on how we will achieve it. Our plans for growth and development will be delivered by applying our key principles of confidence, commitment, and consistency.”
COO Jon Mercer said: “Growth will undoubtedly come from our current three pillars of expertise – legal services, restructuring and insolvency, and raising finance – and we will also be looking to add on complementary skills – like M&A or tax consulting where the synergies align very well.”
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PwC has partnered with further education provider Ada, the National College for Digital Skills, to offer young people and those looking to reskill in the North West the opportunity to earn while they learn in a new Technology Degree Apprenticeship (TDA) programme.
The programme will see 65 apprentices joining across three pathways – Cyber Security, Software Engineer and Data Analyst. All of the new recruits will work from PwC’s Manchester office and complete their degree apprenticeship at Ada College.
Almost a third of the apprentices are female – which is above the tech industry average, and a high proportion are from other underrepresented backgrounds in technology, such as minority ethnic and low income backgrounds.
This is the first time PwC has worked with a further education provider instead of a university to deliver their Technology Degree Apprenticeships, and the company said it is proud to be offering an alternative entry route to aspiring technologists.
PwC intake
This “work first” programme complements the firm’s “study first” university-based apprenticeships, and will see each apprentice gain a Level 6 Degree Apprenticeship over the course of three years and have the tuition fees for their degree fully funded before they continue their careers at PwC and beyond.
Ben Higgin, head of technology and investments at PwC UK, is spearheading this new programme. He says that the Tech Degree Apprenticeship has been specifically designed to appeal to students who want to get practical work experience straight away, and fast track their careers in technology without the traditional university pathway.
He said: “This programme is an exciting opportunity for people in the North West, creating an opportunity to train much needed talent in our region. As the digital skills gap continues to widen, creating a barrier for growth, we’re proud to share some of the responsibility in supporting a diverse pipeline of entry-level tech talent.
“Our first cohort will be part of our brand new Tech Hub in the PwC Manchester office and will become PwC employees from day one. They’ll be earning a salary throughout the course which blends 20% college learning with 80% practical work-based technology projects.”
Claire McDonald, Apprenticeship Delivery Manager from Ada, the National College for Digital Skills, said: “Manchester is the fastest growing tech hub in Europe so it is the ideal place to launch this ambitious programme.”
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SME financier, Bibby Financial Services (BFS) has appointed Daniel Williams as head of sales – corporate North as it looks to expand its support for SMEs and their advisors throughout the North of England and Scotland.
Daniel joins BFS, part of Liverpool-based Bibby Line Group, with more than 16 years’ experience in corporate banking and commercial finance, having held a range of senior sales leadership roles within Lloyds Bank, most recently as director of invoice finance sales.
BFS UK head of sales, Stephen Hand, said: “Our corporate team is a huge part of our success, and we have excellent relationships throughout the UK intermediary community, a fantastic proposition and a risk appetite that enables us to say now when others say no. Appointing someone of Daniel’s calibre to build on and enhance our support for SMEs and introducers is testament to our ambitious sales strategy.”
Daniel heads BFS’s Corporate North team, responsible for developing transactions for SMEs with turnover up to £100m supporting a range of requirements including working capital and cashflow, growth and expansion, MBIs and MBOs, refinancing, restructuring, and mergers and acquisitions.
Daniel Williams
He said: “BFS is incredibly well placed to support businesses overcome challenges and take advantage of opportunities they face, enabling them to unlock working capital to grow and thrive. We have fantastic people and a flexible approach to funding, so I’m delighted to join the business at such an important time for UK PLC.”
BFS supports nearly 9,000 SME clients globally through its invoice finance and asset finance solutions. In addition, its product range includes Foreign Exchange, Export and Trade Finance, as well as specialist finance for the construction sector.
Daniel Williams added: “Our ambition is to build on the attributes BFS is already well known for and leverage our product portfolio to grow our financing support for SMEs throughout the UK. We’re actively recruiting for other key roles within the corporate team, and we will be reaching out to our valued introducer network in the North of England and Scotland over the coming weeks to understand how we can bolster our support for them and their clients in the remainder of 2022 and beyond.”
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Volker Hirsch has joined Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC) as chief commercial officer to direct the Alderley Park-based organisation’s activity into impactful collaborative programmes and investments and drive further growth within the thriving medicines discovery community.
As a technology investor and co-founder of seven companies, Volker brings outstanding international business and entrepreneurial skills. Trained as a lawyer, Volker spent more than two decades in technology businesses in the UK, US, Germany and beyond, where he drove corporate strategy, growth and expansion. Before joining MDC, Volker was a partner at Amadeus Capital, a high-tech investment house, and he has a successful record in Angel investment, providing capital for start-up companies.
Volker also has a strong role in regional technology development through Tech North Advocates, a not-for-profit collective promoting the role of tech in the North of England.
His expertise will guide MDC’s impact investment activities to help create a thriving UK drug discovery sector, enabling life sciences to be one of the great drivers of growth for the UK economy, critical to the health, wealth and resilience of the nation.
Volker Hirsch
MDC is reshaping the UK’s medicines discovery industry, transforming great UK science into better treatments through partnership. It works to tackle industry-led challenges, overcoming the barriers that limit today’s drug discovery with effective interventions and industrialising new technologies to drive the adoption of new scientific tools and techniques for discovering medicines.
Volker Hirsch said: “I have a passion for helping people and have seen first-hand how vitally important support and investment are to help innovation flourish – in medicines discovery, saving time and money can ultimately help to save lives. The talented, expert team at MDC has already significantly impacted the drug discovery sector, helping businesses overcome the challenges they face and accelerate their growth.
“Together, we will continue to identify more opportunities to strengthen the UK’s position as a world leader in medicines discovery through impact investment – reinvesting in initiatives and partnerships for the greater good. I look forward to being part of MDC’s bright and ambitious future.”
Prof Chris Molloy, CEO at MDC, said: “We are thrilled to welcome Volker to our team as we enter an exciting phase of development for MDC. We have ambitious plans for growth.
“Volker’s long standing international corporate development expertise will be pivotal as we continue to reshape UK medicines discovery and deliver impact to the sector. By building on our current approach and adding further investment in our programmes, we will be in a position to help more companies and drive innovative growth, at the next level, for the sector’s benefit.”
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CBRE’s regional sustainability team has been bolstered by the appointment of Lucinda Lay, who joins as biodiversity net gain lead supporting the ESG offering and championing the delivery of nature-positive operations.
Working with regional sustainability director, Lydia Dutton, Lucinda will be based in Manchester and supports the North and Scotland with a national remit to develop a biodiversity net gain proposition.
Lucinda Lay
Lucinda joins from Mitie where she was both head of nature and ESG programme manager working across Lloyds Banking Group’s sustainability strategy, supporting their journey to net zero carbon by 2030. At Mitie, Lydia also worked on the expansion into biodiversity net gain and nature positive solutions. Lucinda worked with clients including Sellafield, Magnox and Department for Transport on their journeys to nature-positive operations.
Prior to joining Mitie, Lucinda was director of operations for the Innovation Gateway alliance and as sustainability programmes manager for The University of Oxford, was responsible for the design and delivery of a £14.6m programme to achieve a 33% reduction in carbon emissions across the functional estate by 2020/21.
This key appointment underlines CBRE’s ability to advise on the Environment Act 2021, which introduced a new mandatory need to demonstrate 10% biodiversity net gain from November 2023 onwards for all projects needing planning consent.
Lydia Dutton said: “As we continue to engage with our clients across the regions there is clear interest and drive to embed ESG in the North and Scotland. Lucinda brings a wealth of sustainability experience which will add significant value and insight for CBRE and our clients.”
Lucinda Lay said: “Climate change and biodiversity loss are the two significant challenges of the 21st century. Joining the CBRE ESG consultancy provides me with a new opportunity to push through transformational change within the CRE sector. As a progressive leader with a clear vision to innovate and deliver change, I am excited to build the partnerships needed to make it happen.”
