People: Grayling hires new head of Birmingham office; New chair for Birmingham Trainee Solicitors Society; and more

Grayling UK has appointed Bethany Pearson as director and head of Grayling Birmingham to further strengthen its regional footprint across the UK.

Pearson joins after a six-year stint at freuds where she led a team working on a number of public and private sector health and behaviour change campaigns, including Public Health England, Durex, The Estée Lauder Companies Breast Cancer Campaign, as well as the Mayor of London’s #LondonIsOpen.

She has a wealth of FMCG experience across food, drink, tourism and retail sectors and, prior to freuds, held roles at Frank and Ketchum, where she was awarded a place on the James Maxwell graduate scheme after university.

Heading up Grayling’s Midlands division, she will oversee the development of Grayling’s portfolio of clients in the region, including the recent addition of Coventry University Group, alongside established household names such as M&S, John West and HSBC who have partnered with Grayling for a number of years.

Sarah Scholefield, CEO Grayling UK & Ireland, said: “At Grayling, we take pride in our unique expertise that operates seamlessly at both a national and local level. Betty’s appointment is illustrative of our ambition to hire the best-in-class for our business right across our nine UK offices. She’s got fantastic big-agency, big-brand experience and a genuine passion and understanding of the region.

“We have ambitious plans for our business in the Midlands, underscored by this critical hire. With a fully-integrated offer across consumer, corporate and public affairs, we’re the only agency in the region that can genuinely claim to be ideally placed to help businesses capitalise on the increasing momentum generated by the Midlands Engine, the West Midlands Combined Authority and Local Industrial Strategies.”

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Birmingham Trainee Solicitors Society (BTSS), the 174 year old offshoot of the Birmingham Law Society, has named its new chair as first year trainee from The Wilkes Partnership, Matthew Hartas.

The organisation, which is made up of more the 300 trainee solicitors, paralegals, newly qualified solicitors and post-graduate law students across Birmingham and the West Midlands, ran elections in March, with many members voting.

In his manifesto, Hartas promised to continue the charity fundraising work – currently Free@Last – which aims to improve the lives of children and young people in Nechells. He also set plans to continue to deliver important social and networking events that have established the BTSS as one of the leading young legal organisations in the UK.

He said: “I’m really looking forward to getting started as chair. Since starting at Wilkes I have always been encouraged to get involved in BTSS activities and I could immediately see why. It is such an active organisation and it not only helps build relationships within the next generation of lawyers in Birmingham, it also raise money for good causes.”

In his first year at The Wilkes Partnership, having joined in September 2018, the Hartas is currently working in corporate law after spending the previous six months with the firm’s specialist property team. As part of the progression through Wilkes’ trainee initiative, he still has the opportunity to learn in several more of the law firm’s practice areas, before progressing to assistant solicitor.

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Woodrow Mercer has bolstered its Birmingham-based team by welcoming recruiter Ryan O’Toole as associate director for transactional finance and business services.

O’Toole’s appointment will see Woodrow Mercer, which also has offices in London, Leeds and Nottingham, grow a new temporary and permanent transactional finance team.

Over the next three to five years, up to 12 new jobs will be created by the company in the city. O’Toole will expand his team of three experienced hires with graduates ready for a career in recruitment.

Dan Ostrowski, managing director at Woodrow Mercer, said: “We are delighted to have somebody of Ryan’s extensive experience on-board as he will bring a wealth of training expertise to the company. Despite being appointed as associate director, Ryan’s role will be very hands-on as he remains an excellent recruiter.

“Our finance division is particularly strong and growing a brand-new team from our Birmingham office can only be good for the local area – whether this be young graduates looking for a career or the many financial firms that we work with in the region.”

O’Toole, whose career to-date has included roles at both Michael Page and the Venn Group, has recruited in the transactional finance sector across the East and West Midlands for nearly eight years.