People: Pierce; DSG; Brookfield Rose & more

CHARTERED accountant John Green has been appointed chairman of North West business advisory and accountancy group Pierce.
Green, who joined Pierce as a senior manager in 1993, also leads the corporate finance and forensic teams at the Blackburn practice.
He replaces former Pierce chairman Graham Boyes, who retired at the end of September.
“It is an honour and privilege to be given the opportunity to serve as chairman at Pierce,” Green said.
“Having worked at Pierce for more than 20 years, I have seen very many exciting changes. I am ready to embrace the challenge of helping to steer the practice’s future development.
“Pierce is proud to be situated at the heart of the North West business community and I look forward to continuing to provide support to our clients.”
Born, raised and educated in Lancashire, Green qualified as a chartered accountant in 1984 and became a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in 1994.
He serves as a “checked” Expert Witness for The Law Society and is a founding member of The Expert Witness Institute.
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CHARTERED accountancy firm DSG, based in Liverpool, has appointed a new business development director to help it to tap into opportunities in the burgeoning market.
Malcolm Jones, former investment director at Merseyside Special Investment Fund, has joined the business to help the firm to capitalise on new business opportunities in the wake of the upturn in the economy.
Prior to his role at MSIF, where he worked for more than 13 years Jones was corporate director at Barclays Bank.
Andrew Moss, head of corporate at DSG, said: “We’re very pleased to be welcoming Malcolm on board. He’s a great character with unrivalled insight into the North West professional community and his depth of experience in corporate finance will allow him play a key role in ensuring that the firm is positively and professionally promoted in its markets.”
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CHESHIRE-based business group, Brookfield Rose, has appointed Alex Henshall as senior PR and communications consultant.
Henshall has over 15 years’ experience in PR and marketing communications and joins Brookfield Rose after nearly a decade at Good Relations (part of FTSE-listed Chime Communications), a top-10 UK PR and content agency, formerly Bell Pottinger.
Prior to that, he spent nearly six years at the Cheshire Building Society where he worked for its internal autonomous business unit, Cheshire Business Consultancy, where he managed strategic marketing-based projects in order to increase revenue and improve competitive performance for the Society.
Henshall will now be responsible for leading Brookfield Rose’s PR and communications function across the group’s 13 commercial and consumer brands, while building media relationships raising awareness of the group’s companies across regional, national and trade media.
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TWO budding young solicitors have joined leading North West law firm Hillyer McKeown as part of its pioneering articled apprenticeship scheme.
Rhiannon Parry, 20, and Joe Manley, 19, have been selected to join Hillyer McKeown after the firm was the first in England and Wales to adopt the Articled Apprenticeship scheme earlier this year.
Hillyer McKeown, which has offices in Chester, Liverpool and Wirral, is working closely with The University of Law (ULaw), which developed the programme, to open up the profession to a greater number of talented candidates and provide an alternative route to legal qualification for those who want to earn while they learn.
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PAYMENT technology and prepaid card provider Tuxedo Money Solutions has appointed Leanne Meech as client relationship manager for its clients in the consumer payments sector.
Meech joins the company with nine years’ experience working within the payments sector.
She previously worked for leading financial provider MBNA as a relationship manager where she worked closely with American Airlines, Etihad and United Airlines, developing her expertise.
In her new position Meech will be responsible for the commercial management of a number of existing partnerships, including AA, Valour Money, Grouptrader and Endsleigh Insurance. Her key objective is to work with clients to develop and execute product and marketing plans, in order to maximise programme growth opportunities.
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NORTH West law firm ABH Law has added three solicitors to its growing team.
The appointments further strengthen the Wigan-based firm’s commercial litigation, probate and conveyancing divisions.
Tim Meers is the most experienced of the trio with more than 30 years’ experience in the property sector working for firms including Nabarro, Dechert, Speechlys and more recently DAC Beachcroft.
With a decade of experience in conveyancing, Liam Prescott joins from Countrywide Property Lawyers Ltd. Also on board is Sean Devlin who worked at Mark Reynolds Solicitors and becomes part of the wills and probate division.
ABH Law was formed 18 months ago, following the merger between Alker and Ball and Healds Solicitors, and joint managing partner Gary Shepherd says it has been a period of continued growth: “ABH Law has a team of around 50 people, helping hundreds of clients every month.
“We are continuing to attract solicitors with a wide range of experience. This enables us to offer our clients further expertise across a number of sectors which they would expect from a full service law firm.”
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CHESHIRE manufacturer Cygnet Group has appointed Gary Lynch as chief operations officer of its Cygnet Texkimp business, which provides engineering solutions and equipment for the production, processing and handling of technical fibres.
Gary joins Northwich-based Cygnet Texkimp’s board of directors with 28 years’ experience in operations roles, most recently as director of a $190m turnover business division of international energy transformation company GE Power Conversion.
“We’ve brought Gary on board to release capacity for our next phase of growth across international markets,” says Matthew Kimpton-Smith, chief executive of Cygnet Texkimp, which manufactures specialist machinery to process technical fibres, including high-grade carbon fibres used in the automotive, aerospace and wind energy sectors.