People: Joint senior partners announced at planning consultancy; Al Rayan Bank makes senior hire; and more

Planning and design consultancy Barton Willmore has appointed two senior partners to lead the practice.

Birmingham based Mark Sitch who has undertaken the role since 2015 will be joined by Iain Painting from the London Office for the next five years.

Sitch said: “The strength of our Practice lies in our people and we are fortunate to work with extremely talented teams across the country. We are passionate about our teams and the integrated offer they, together, can provide our clients. We look forward to developing new thinking and innovative solutions to delivering places for people to thrive and driving our business forward in order to maintain our position as the UK’s largest independent planning and design consultancy.”

Painting added: “These are exciting times for our sector. We are well placed to assist our clients in responding to the challenges and opportunities in meeting the Country’s development needs: climate change and promoting sustainable development which can support the UK’s progress towards zero carbon, addressing the north south divide and social exclusion, regenerating our high streets and meeting housing and employment needs are but a few.  I am excited at the opportunity of working across the Practice to continue to assist our clients and promote the excellent work and service that we offer”.

Sitch joined the Practice in 1999, became a partner in 2003 and was last elected as senior partner in 2014. Painting joined 1996 as a senior planner from the City of Westminster and became a partner in the practice’s London office in 2002.

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Al Rayan Bank recruited Daniel Denningberg as chief human resources officer.

Denningberg will report directly into the executive board and will be based at Al Rayan Bank’s head office in Birmingham.

He joins Al Rayan Bank, the UK’s largest Islamic bank, after an international career focused in the finance and energy sectors spanning over 15 years. Most recently he served as director of people at a global energy commodities consultancy Energy Aspects, specialising in oil, gas and renewable energies, working with teams stationed all over the world.

Denningberg has spent his recent years working with executive leadership teams in the financial and private sector, developing and implementing comprehensive strategic people plans to meet business goals.

Denningberg said: “It is a really exciting time to join Al Rayan Bank and I’m eager to start work on the plans for the future.

“I’m looking forward to putting my experience into practice and will be working closely with all business areas,  offices and branches across the country, focusing on talent and culture, to ensure we have the people and polices in place to best serve the needs of our growing customer base.”

Ahmed Sheikh, CEO, at Al Rayan Bank said: “Daniel’s experience of providing clarity of thought, counsel and leadership will be invaluable to Al Rayan Bank as we head into an important year. His record in collaborating with executives on all aspects of human resources, from talent and leadership development to diversity and inclusion and employee engagement, will help us develop further in the next year. We’re looking forward to working with him closely at the Bank.”

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Claritas Tax has appointed Simon Mitchelhill as head of business development.

He said: “I am absolutely delighted to join Claritas Tax at a key point in their growth journey.  Having expanded rapidly over the last 7 years through their strong reputation among mid-market businesses and their stakeholders, Claritas are now one of the largest independent tax advisory firms in the UK.  I will be promoting Claritas directly to entrepreneurial businesses and their owners who are looking to develop, transform, grow, restructure, buy or sell part or all of their organisation. Due to the size of the team, their incredible depth of experience and Claritas’ affinity with SMEs, I am genuinely excited to be a key part in the next phase of their regional and national expansion. ”

Iain Wright, managing director, added: ”Simon joining us at the beginning of what already feels like a very busy year ahead is a critical hire and demonstrates our ambition to establish Claritas as the ‘go to’ firm for independent tax advice in the Midlands. We’re delighted to have him onboard.”