Appointments: Wild makes partner at Baker Tilly; Winsulate & more

ACCOUNTANCY and business services firm Baker Tilly has appointed James Wild as a corporate finance partner at its Manchester office.

Wild joined Baker Tilly in 2002 and has more than 12 years’ experience in M&A, transacting management buy-outs, sale mandates, acquisitions and private equity fundraising.

Recently, he worked on several notable deals, including the sale of Fentons and Walker Smith Way to Slater & Gordon and the private equity investment by Piper into Chester-based Hickory’s barbecue chain.

”The opportunity to become a partner in the M&A team is an exciting one. We have a great team in place and strong coverage of clients in the North West,” he said. ”We’ve had a very successful year and have numerous high quality opportunities in the pipeline.”

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ENVIRONMENTAL remediation company Winsulate have promoted commercial director Brent Wardle to the role of managing director.

Founder and now chief executive of the Manchester-based firm, John Bagnall said: “Brent has been with the company for 10 years and I am proud to have watched him develop into an extremely capable managing director.

“We will still work closely together and I look forward to watching Winsulate develop and support our overall group strategy.”

Winsulate has been on the acquisition trail, seeking opportunities to diversify to retain its position as a provider of sustainable environmental remediation solutions across the UK’s most complex areas.

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CHESHIRE-based virtual reality company Virtalis  has created a new senior management role and appointed David Francis, formerly Head of Process and Systems Change at Network Rail, as head of client delivery.

Francis said: “I am defining Virtalis’ end-to-end operating model and ensuring operation processes are joined up across the company from pre-sales to post-delivery.
 
“This will further enhance the quality of what Virtalis delivers and ensure excellent service to Virtalis’ burgeoning high-end, multi-national customer base.”

Virtalis managing director, David Cockburn-Price, said: “Dave has already reported to his first board meeting with an impressive review of what he has discovered about our business and what his initial plan of action is.”

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CUMBRIAN accountancy firm Armstrong Watson has announced the promotion of three new partners to join its 30-strong team.

They are Joanna Gray, Richard Askew and Richard Andrew.

Managing partner Paul Dickon said: “It is a real pleasure to see three extremely strong candidates come through to be promoted to partner.

“All three have been through the firm’s academy programme which develops the skills in individuals we see have the potential to go on to achieve great things with their careers.”

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LAW firm Linder Myers has appointed a new clinical negligence solicitor at its Chester office.

Samantha Smith will be working with Tim Dennis, who recently secured £5m for a client brain damaged as a result of clinical negligence, and will be working on a range of claims, including orthopaedic, delay in diagnosis, negligent surgery and cerebral palsy matters.

Smith said: “I’m really pleased to be part of Linder Myers’ nationally acclaimed medical negligence team and look forward to progressing my career working alongside some of the best specialists in this complex field.

“The NHS sadly continues to face increasing pressures and patient care will undoubtedly suffer. Our role is to help those who find themselves in these unfortunate circumstances.”

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PR and communications agency Influential has strengthened its senior team with the appointment of [PAGE]Jonathan Caswell.

Caswell, who most recently has been working as communications adviser to the elected Mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, joins the agency as associate director.

He was previously head of public relations at the city’s economic development company, Liverpool Vision, and at Marketing Liverpool.

During his time with the city he was responsible for leading on the PR for Liverpool’s highly successful six-month presence at Shanghai World Expo 2010; helping to plan and lead the PR campaign for the International Festival for Business 2014; co-authoring the bid that brought the Global Entrepreneurship Congress 2012 to Europe for the first time; and devising and delivering the inaugural Liverpool Knowledge Festival.