People: OakNorth; Paragon Bank; Hill & Smith

OakNorth has announced the appointment of Ian Fairclough as the new director of debt finance, based at the firm’s Birmingham office.

Fairclough brings over 20 years of experience in the banking and finance industry.

He began his career with training at PwC in Birmingham and has since dedicated two decades to supporting Midlands-based businesses.

Before joining OakNorth, he held senior roles at Lloyds, Future Planet Capital as an investment director and Virgin Money, where he served as senior director for nearly five years.

In his new role at OakNorth, Fairclough will focus on providing trading facilities, including acquisition and buyout financing, as well as facilitating roll-outs and recapitalisations for growth businesses throughout the Midlands.

Ben Barbanel, head of debt finance at OakNorth, said: “We’re thrilled to have Ian join our Birmingham-based Debt Finance team that is focussed on supporting growth businesses across the West and East Midlands. Both regions are integral parts of OakNorth’s growth strategy, which has seen us lend c.£670m to businesses in these regions since our launch in September 2015.

“Having spent 20+ years working in the banking and finance industry, Ian’s experience will help us strengthen our corporate lending, including the provision of acquisition and buyout finance, as well as rollouts and recaps for growth businesses across the Midlands.”

Paragon Bank’s development finance division has strengthened its team by appointing Oliver Powlesland as senior relationship director.

Powlesland joins the Paragon development finance team from Close Brothers, where he enjoyed a career as a business development director, working in the property finance division for almost 15 years.

In a career spanning over 25 years, he started as a credit analyst before moving into development finance.

During his career, he has held roles at RBS, Westdeutsche ImmobilienBank, Anglo Irish Bank, Macquarie Bank and Close Brothers.

In his new role, he will be focusing on growing business opportunities in the residential, purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) and pre-let commercial space.

Oliver Powlesland

He will report directly to Neal Moy, managing director of Paragon development finance and brings Paragon’s number of Relationship Directors to 11.

Powlesland, said: “I am excited to be joining Paragon Development Finance and working with Neal and the wider team to build on their success over recent years. Paragon recently hit £3 billion of development finance lending, so it’s a business that has a clear desire to back SME housebuilders and property developers to deliver the homes the country needs.

“I’m looking forward to meeting both new and current clients to talk about future schemes across the country.”

Neal Moy, managing director of Paragon Bank’s Development Finance division, said: “We’re thrilled to welcome Oliver to Paragon Development Finance. Oliver has had a brilliant career to date and will be bringing with him a wealth of knowledge and experience. Paragon Development Finance is on an exciting growth journey and we’re continuing to build momentum with fantastic new team members joining and some great projects in the pipeline.”

Tony Quinlan, chair of the nomination committee and senior independent director said: “The Board is pleased to appoint such an experienced CEO as Rutger to lead Hill & Smith at a time when the business has strong trading and strategic momentum and is well positioned in some extremely attractive end markets, with long term structural growth drivers, particularly in the US. We were fortunate that Rutger was able to join the process at a relatively late stage, following the acquisition of Tyman this summer.

“I would like to thank Alan for the huge commitment he has made to Hill & Smith since taking on the Executive Chair role, during which time the Group has delivered significant organic and inorganic growth and made meaningful strategic progress.  The Board is very pleased that Alan has agreed to continue as Chair of the Group until 2026 to ensure continuity of leadership. The search for his successor will commence next year.”

Wolverhampton-based Hill & Smith, a provider of sustainable infrastructure products and services, has announced that Rutger Helbing will join the board as chief executive officer (“CEO”).

Previously, Helbing served as CEO of Tyman, an international supplier of engineered components for the construction sector and a member of the FTSE 250. Before that, he was CEO of Devro.

His earlier career includes finance roles in global manufacturing companies such as Unilever, ICI and AkzoNobel. He also joined Devro as group finance director in 2016.

Alan Giddins, who has been serving as executive chair since July 2022, will transition from the role after a brief handover period and will return to his previous position as non-executive chair, chair of the nomination committee and member of the remuneration committee.

Giddins has been on the group’s board for nearly seven years, having joined as a non-executive in October 2017, and will step down as chair after the May 2026 AGM.

Tony Quinlan, the senior independent non-executive director, will resign as chair of the nomination committee but will remain a member and lead the search for Giddin’s successor.

With Helbing’s appointment as CEO, the board has restructured executive responsibilities. As a result, Hooman Caman Javvi, chief operating officer, will step down from the board and leave Hill & Smith to pursue other opportunities.

The board currently does not plan to appoint a replacement for this role.

Giddins said: “I am delighted to welcome Rutger to the Board; he has been the stand-out candidate for the CEO role at Hill & Smith following an extensive search.  He brings broad-based international manufacturing experience, excellent strategic and commercial acumen and significant experience as a CEO, with a track record of delivering value for shareholders.  Culturally, Rutger is also an excellent fit with our business and teams.

“On behalf of the Board, I would also like to thank Hooman for all that he has done for Hill & Smith over the last three years, and wish him well in the future.”