Appointments: Mills in at Clarion; Money Advice; Brown Shipley & more
ENTREPRENEUR Mark Mills has extended his portfolio of interests by becoming non-executive chairman of Knutsford wealth management firm Clarion.
Mr Mills, 42, who also works with Stockport accountants Hurst, used to run pay cash machine operator Cardpoint which he led to AIM and built to a £98m turnover group.
At Clarion he will help deliver its growth strategy, overseeing a programme of organic expansion and targeted acquisitions.
Clarion currently employs 13 staff, including five financial planners, and has funds under discretionary management of £100m. It recently acquired SDJ Private Clients, a financial planning firm with funds under advice of around £25 million.
Ron Walker, founder and managing director of Clarion said, “Mark’s extensive experience of growing firms by acquisition and implementing big company systems and controls during periods of rapid growth will be a real asset to us as we grow.”
Mr Mills, who will initially spend two days per month working with Clarion, said, “My job going forward will be to help identify new markets for the company’s services and to ensure that opportunities within its existing market are exploited to the full.”
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MANCHESTER-based Money Advice Group has appointed Dean Smith as senior practitioner.
He takes up the role alongside the recently recruited director of insolvency, Gordon Johnston. They will seek to grow the firm’s Individual Voluntary Arrangements (IVA), Debt Arrangement Schemes (DAS) and Trust Deeds (PTDs) services.
Mr Smith started his career at Baker Tilly and PriceWaterhouseCoopers before taking a position at Grant Thornton, where he worked in the fraud and asset recovery department before obtaining his Insolvency license.
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PRIVATE bank Brown Shipley has appointed Michael Chambers as its new head of internal audit. He joins from Co-operative Banking Group where he worked in risk and control in its asset management division.
Mr Chambers, who will be based in Brown Shipley’s Manchester office in Spinningfields, is a qualified accountant with over 10 years’ financial services experience in internal audit risk and compliance. He has also held positions with Deloitte and KPMG.
Brown Shipley’s managing director, Ian Sackfield, said: “As Brown Shipley moves into a new era, we continue to hire high-calibre individuals who will contribute to managing our business successfully. Michael is one of our recent appointments and we believe his experience across the risk and audit spectrum will be of great benefit to Brown Shipley.”
Mr Chambers said: “I am delighted to be joining Brown Shipley at such a significant juncture and look forward to contributing to the effectiveness of existing audit processes and participating in the development of new ones.”
