People: Bevan Brittan; DWF; R&Co Communications; Evolution Claims Management

Bevan Brittan’s Birmingham office has promoted two of the law firm’s former trainees, including one who has become a partner.

The promotions in the Birmingham office include new partner Raj Kang, an experienced healthcare litigator who began her career with the firm as a trainee in 2008.

She became a senior associate in 2022 and now joins the partnership through her latest promotion.

Raj Kang

Two other members of the Birmingham team have also started new roles as associates, Hannah Cons, who began her career with Bevan Brittan as a trainee in 2017, and property law expert Raman Thandi-Bal.

Rebecca Pendlebury, partner and head of Bevan Brittan’s Birmingham office, said: “Every single one of our successful colleagues has played a major role in our growth and in meeting the increasing demand for our advice on a broad range of issues.

“Building on a decade of consistent growth, we continue to go from strength to strength. This year’s promotions reflect both the breadth and depth of the expertise and experience within our business, as well as our commitment to equality and the value we place on diversity. The fact that two of our promoted people in Birmingham are former trainees also shows the career development opportunities we can offer our existing and future colleagues.

“Following this round of promotions, 52% of our Partners are women. Because we know that diversity enriches our business, we will continue supporting talented people to succeed. This year, we have also welcomed 32 senior lateral hires into our business, six of them here in Birmingham. This is testament to the reputation we have for the work we do and the clients we act for. Our new joiners also tell us that they value the career development support and hybrid working environment we provide to enable them to balance their lives.”

DWF, the global provider of integrated legal and business services, has announced Birmingham-based partner, Melanie Williams as head of the business& global real estate practice.

Williams has worked for DWF for over 10 years with both a national and Birmingham presence and has principally spent her 25 year career advising on real estate development projects.

Melanie Williams

She has built a robust reputation in the hotel sector with particular expertise in the acquisition, funding and development of hotels as well as on public sector and development projects.

Williams has led DWF’s built environment sector for the last six years and also leads DWF’s hospitality sector, which she will continue alongside her new role, as well as playing a key role in her local real estate community in Birmingham (including her non-executive directorship on the board of the Colmore Business District (BID)). Melanie will also continue to manage some of the group’s key client relationships.

She said: I am honoured to be appointed as global head of real estate at DWF. It is an exciting time for our global team, particularly given our recent take private with Inflexion. We will continue to focus on delivering innovative solutions and services for our clients, and I look forward to further developing our strategy to ensure the continued growth of our team and its
capabilities across our various locations.”

CEO of Commercial Services at DWF, Paul Rimmer added: “Melanie’s wealth of experience and dedication to excellence perfectly align with our commitment to delivering exceptional service to our clients worldwide. Congratulations Melanie on this well-deserved achievement. Melanie takes over as global head of the real estate from Toby Askin who held the role for over 10
years. Toby remains at DWF as a senior partner within the real estate global practice area.”

A West Midlands communications agency has further strengthened its digital team with the appointment of three new members of staff.

Leamington and Birmingham-based R&Co Communications has grown its social media team with the appointment of Kirstie Robinson as account director and Joe Tabb as account manager.

Jack Stocking also joins the R&Co team as SEO account director following multiple new contract wins achieved by the agency since the end of 2023.

Joe Tabb, Kirstie Robinson and Jack Stocking

Robinson is a social media and creative digital campaigns expert, having gained experience in PR and digital agencies in Birmingham.

She has worked with national and international consumer brands across healthcare, travel, property and FMCG.

Tabb’s career in social media spans over five years and includes agency-side roles and internal roles, working with a range of B2C and B2B brands, including a wide variety of budget sizes.

He’s worked with various brands and businesses, including theatres, female-care, pet brands, automotive and clothing and also has experience in email marketing and SEO.

Stocking has seven years of experience in SEO, priding himself on an adaptable and versatile approach to work as part of managing teams of SEO executives.

He has particular expertise in website audits, creating SEO strategies, website migrations and content production.

Peter Robinson, managing director at R&Co Communications, said: “We know clients don’t want their PR agencies to bamboozle them with jargon-laden presentations and vanity metrics – they simply want to work with talented people who deliver on
their promises. By assembling a team of high-performing senior staff, it means the clients work with the people who pitch to them, rather than being sold the dream by a pitch team and then having the work delivered by office juniors.

“We are attracting an outstanding calibre of talent to our agency as we continue to grow and evolve in this way and the appointment of Kirstie, Joe and Jack is further testament to that. Our approach means our team will tell you what the agency will do for you and then deliver it themselves – a strategy which we know works.”

The new managing director of Evolution Claims Management has hired new managing director, Russell Crewe to continue to with the firms growth plans.

Drawing upon a wealth of experience in growing insurance claims businesses Russell, who was most recently chief operating officer of property & niche claims for professional services and technology specialists Davies Group, says he has been impressed by the recent growth of the business and the culture and ethos the team create.

Earlier in his career, Crewe was business unit director of claims management for Direct Group from 2012 until it was acquired by Davies Group in 2018.

Russell Crewe

He has also held the role of director of loss-adjusting services for Merlin Claims Limited.

He started with Evolution on March 1.

He said: “Since I started in the business I have been incredibly impressed by Evolution Claims Management as it is a superb business which can only get even better. It has been fulfilling to meet the people here, who are passionate about delivering results for customers and want to drive the business forward. They are not afraid of change nor are they worried about challenging the market as there is cohesion about where we are going.

“The acceleration of the business has been impressive but there are still new opportunities for growth ahead of us, whereby we can add to the portfolio of services we offer. The move here has already been one of the most rewarding starts in my career. There is no doubt that this business is destined for great things.”