People: Realm Recruit; Ward Hadaway; TLC; MorganAsh; Harrison Drury; Pixel Kicks
Altrincham-based legal attraction, retention and recruitment consultancy, Realm Recruit, has strengthened its specialist team with two new appointments.
Jenny Vickerstaff joins as a senior consultant specialising in the recruitment of legal support staff across the North West. Jenny has more than 18 years of professional services recruitment experience and has spent the past five years focusing exclusively on recruiting for a variety of administrative and secretarial roles within law firms across the UK.
Laura McColl Wilson joins the business as an associate consultant and will be specialising in the recruitment of commercial insurance lawyers across the North West, Yorkshire and the West Midlands. Before joining Realm, Laura recruited in-house for Cheshire Police and worked as an internal recruitment coordinator on behalf of one of the UK’s leading cash process companies.
Managing director, Duane Cormell, said: “I’m thrilled to welcome Jenny and Laura to Realm Recruit. They both have fantastic experience and expertise and I’m excited to see what they can achieve and how their careers will develop with us.”
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Sarah Crawford
Northern law firm Ward Hadaway has announced new appointments in its family and matrimonial team as it continues to see strong growth across the North West.
Ed Davison has joined as a paralegal alongside newly qualified solicitor Sarah Crawford who has just completed a successful two-year training contract with the firm.
This dual appointment represents a significant further step in the implementation of Ward Hadaway’s national family and matrimonial practice strategy. The 16-strong team, with solicitors based in Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle, has achieved growth of more than 16% in revenue across its three offices compared with the same period last year.
Before joining Ward Hadaway, Ed was a paralegal at Prince Family Law Solicitors and, more recently, Hall Brown. As well as five years working in family law, Ed trained as an accountant, bringing a new dimension to the team.
Liz Bottrill, joint head of the matrimonial team, said: “The consistent growth of our family team, both regionally and nationally, is a testament to our strategic vision and the hard work, commitment and skillset of our talented lawyers. The recruitment of Ed and Sarah is a significant milestone in our pursuit of national leadership in family law services.”
Sarah said: “During my training period, I gained a deep understanding of the diverse range of legal disciplines that the firm operates within, including family law, which is the sector I have chosen to enter. I’m looking forward to getting involved and playing an active role in our impactful client work.”
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Amy Brown
Manchester-based event management company, the Taylor Lynn Corporation (TLC), has promoted event manager Amy Brown to the role of business development manager.
Amy joined TLC from the hotel and hospitality venue sector in 2022, and in her role as event manager for the company has helped to successfully produce large scale corporate events, team building and staff recognition days, and a series of UK and international private events.
Amy said: “This is such an exciting opportunity for me. In previous roles I worked closely with business networks, PAs, and companies in the region, and it was something that I thoroughly enjoyed. So, to be able to combine being a part of the creative and innovative team here at TLC, with my new responsibility for connecting directly with corporate businesses, is a huge privilege.”
Liz Taylor, founder and CEO of TLC, said: “Amy has absolutely proven herself to be a first class event manager. But more than that, she has shown me that she has the skills, motivation and positive attitude needed to work with local corporate businesses and develop new relationships within this key sector.”
With its headquarters in Manchester, TLC works with global leaders, blue-chip companies, charities, sports brands, retail giants, and media businesses. These include Radius Payment Solutions, Wain Homes, AIG, Manchester United, ITV, UEFA, Rothschild Bank, City Suites, and BGL.
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Andrew Gething
MorganAsh, the Runcorn-based provider of support services to the financial services sector, has strengthened its team with two senior appointments.
Supporting its growth in the customer vulnerability and consumer duty markets, MorganAsh appoints Peter Labrow as head of marketing. Peter brings with him around 40 years of experience, including as a journalist for Haymarket Group, as marketing manager for a global systems integration company, and as marketing director of one of the UK’s largest training companies.
Peter was the co-founder of the newswire Learning News – and founder of his own successful marketing agency. Peter also co-wrote the publicity book ‘Is It News?’ – an in-depth guide to writing press releases. He has worked with MorganAsh, as a marketing consultant, for more than a decade.
Also joining the team is underwriting and claims manager, Tracey Johnson. Tracey is a fully qualified and highly experienced medical underwriter and claims manager, who has worked in the UK and Irish protection market and with many of the UK’s life insurers.
Tracey has additional experience in training and development as well as in underwriting systems and rules development. She was an integral part of launching Bright Grey – which is now part of Royal London Retail – and has worked with, amongst others, Acorn, Allianz, AXA, Prudential, Standard Life and Utmost.
Peter Labrow said: “There’s always been a side of me which is drawn to work with socially responsible organisations. The concept of helping organisations get to grips with consumer vulnerability in a best-practice way and enabling them to deliver more consistent outcomes is one that particularly excites me.”
Tracey Johnson said: “I’ve always liked MorganAsh’s approach. They were one of the pioneers of medical underwriting, gathering and using data in a far more intelligent way – with better results all round. This is a great team to be part of.”
Andrew Gething, managing director, said: “These appointments add some solid, senior experience to MorganAsh. I’ve known and worked with Peter for around 20 years – and in the last few years he’s steadily built up his expertise in customer vulnerability. Tracey is a terrific addition to the team. Her reputation quite rightly precedes her, and she brings with her bags of experience, knowledge and energy.”
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Clare Fleming and Charlotte Cooper
North West law firm Harrison Drury has further strengthened its private client team with the appointment of senior associate solicitor Charlotte Cooper.
Charlotte joins from Napthens where she worked as part of the private client team for the past 15 years, as well as leading the probate team since 2015.
Based at the firm’s Preston office, Charlotte will support clients across Preston and the surrounding areas with a range of estate planning matters, including work on complex wills and estates.
Clare Fleming, partner and head of the private client team at Harrison Drury, welcomed Charlotte, saying: “Her longstanding professional relationships and experience working in the industry – from inheritance tax advice to the administration of multimillion-pound estates, farming estates and estates with foreign assets – will be extremely valuable to our clients looking to protect their future financial and property interests.”
After completing her Masters in English Literature at Aberdeen University, Charlotte completed her Common Professional Exams (CPE) and LPC at the University of Central Lancashire, where she was awarded the prestigious Meritorious Award (MSM) for achieving the highest marks in the final year exam.
She said: “I have been aware of Harrison Drury by reputation for many years. It’s an ambitious firm that provides a quality service for clients and has great relations with employees.”
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From left: Molly Barton, Dominic Adam, Jordan Porter, Jusyna Kowalska
Pixel Kicks, the Manchester-based full-service digital agency, is preparing itself for further growth after moving its operations to new larger offices at Swan Buildings in Manchester city centre. The firm has taken 3,000 sq ft on a five-year lease. It had been based in nearby Virginia House for more than 10 years.
The move is part of strategic growth plans. Over the past year, it has onboarded more than 40 clients and aims to increase its turnover to £1.75m in the next 12 months.
In addition to the office move, Pixel Kicks has also recruited four new members of staff, taking its total headcount to 22. The new starters are: Justyna Kowalska, who has joined as a UX/UI designer; Jordan Porter, project coordinator; Dominic Adam, digital marketing executive; and Molly Barton, who is the agency’s newest digital marketing executive.
Managing director, Chris Buckley, said: “Despite living in challenging economic times, the last couple of years has seen strong performance across the business. It became clear that in order to grow we needed more space so the move to Swan Buildings is great news.”
The agency has also announced that Jamie Swain has been promoted to digital marketing manager. Jamie joined Pixel Kicks in 2013 as an apprentice. His new role now sees him leading the digital marketing team, overseeing campaigns for clients and ensuring that campaigns are successfully delivered.
