People: RSM welcomes corporate tax director in Birmingham; International engineering consultancy expands; and more

RSM in Birmingham has appointed Rajh Chana as a corporate tax director in Birmingham.

Chana, who joins RSM from PWC in Birmingham, has 13 years of experience helping privately owned businesses and their shareholders to efficiently manage their tax affairs throughout the business lifecycle.

He routinely advises on equity, corporate acquisitions/disposals, refinancing and preparing for an exit or succession. He has worked across a wide variety of sectors including retail, automotive retail, manufacturing, real estate and private equity.

In his new role, Chana will focus on helping RSM to become the first-choice tax adviser to middle market businesses across the region.

Mark Taylor, managing partner for RSM in the central region said: “We are delighted to welcome Rajh to the team. He is already a well-known and respected adviser in the region, and he will add significant strength and technical expertise to RSM’s growing tax practice here in Birmingham.”

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A global independent engineering consultancy that chose Birmingham as the location for its UK expansion has announced the appointment of an additional regional director to support its existing civil and structures capability.

Building services specialist Lee Davies has joined Meinhardt’s expanding Birmingham office with responsibility for project delivery and the operational growth of the firm’s building services consultancy.

He joins fellow regional director Jason Fox in spearheading the multidisciplinary consultancy’s investment into new regions, as it looks to capitalise on a growing workload on behalf of new and existing clients across the Midlands.

Davies is a former equity director at a Midlands-based building services consultancy, where he specialised in innovative design solutions and construction techniques.

He brings more than two decades of industry experience to the role, having acted as lead building services consultant on a wealth of high-profile projects within the commercial, residential and education sectors on behalf of some of the UK’s largest developers. His achievements include the pioneering design development and delivery of the University of Leicester’s George Davies Centre, the UK’s largest non-domestic Passivhaus.

He said: “The broad range of engineering design services delivered by Meinhardt in the UK and internationally, demonstrates technical expertise that is aligned to the needs of the developing Midlands market. With this capability and the overwhelming commitment and support of the Meinhardt team, Jason and I are privileged to be leading such an exciting opportunity to expand the regional business.”

Based at Two Snowhill, Birmingham, Meinhardt is working on several significant regional projects. The company has been appointed by the Galliard Homes and Apsley House Capital partnership to provide civil and structural design consultancy services at the 14-storey Timber Yard residential development in Birmingham’s Southside development district.

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Warwick-headquartered architectural practice Corstorphine + Wright has hired Ben Round as the company’s finance director.

Round joins Corstorphine + Wright with considerable experience of working within the architectural field, having previously supported another national practice in developing professional organisational structures which facilitated increases in both size and number of projects delivered.

His appointment follows a period of expansion at the practice, which has experienced considerable year-on-year growth, and his role will be to ensure that the business is fully prepared to meet the requirements of a growing portfolio.

Round said: “Over the past few years Corstorphine + Wright has achieved an outstanding level of growth, which is testament to the skills and determination of the leadership team and wider business.

“I now have the exciting opportunity of helping to develop the necessary systems, structure and processes to assimilate that growth and ensure a strong foundation is in place to continue on this trajectory whilst also maintaining the high quality project work for which we’re known as a practice.

“There is a huge opportunity to work across the entire business to develop the support network and structure that fundamentally underpin the fee-earning activity, helping to drive efficiency and ultimately enable our team to concentrate on what they love doing, which is supporting our clients.”

Prior to moving into the architectural field, Round began his career working at KPMG and Rolls Royce Aerospace.