People: New partner appointed to ramp up deals drive at EY; Chemical firm adds to board; Lhasa appoints CSO; and more
EY has appointed a new head of transaction support for Yorkshire and the North East, underlining its commitment to building its deals business in the regions.
Mark Allcroft joins as a partner and will be responsible for growing EY’s transaction support business across Yorkshire and the North East.
Allcroft previously spent 18 years at KPMG, where he supported corporate and private equity clients across a wide variety of sectors and deal situations both domestically and overseas.
Since joining EY, he has been supporting the development of EY’s innovation strategy with a specific focus on the use of technology, data and analytics in M&A.
Allcroft studied physics at Durham University before qualifying as an accountant and is originally from Sheffield. The Owls supporter has relocated back to Sheffield with his family, having lived in London for the last 13 years.
Allcroft said: “I couldn’t have timed my move back home to the North any better – there is a real buzz and sense of ambition amongst my fellow partners and the team here in Leeds.
“EY recognises that our regions are important drivers of UK growth, which should come as no surprise when you look at the diverse nature, quality and entrepreneurial flair of the businesses and private equity investors in the region.”
Meanwhile, Rob Jones and James Moore have also recently relocated to the region to lead and build out EY’s debt advisory and transactions tax businesses and earlier in the year Hilary Heap and Mark Clephan were made partners in the firm’s valuations & business modelling and corporate finance teams respectively.
Allcroft added: “The team we currently have here in Yorkshire is full of energy, enthusiasm and has a wealth of experience, having worked on many high profile transactions across the UK. One of my priorities is to develop this core team and, over the next 12 months, complement it with a number of new appointments.
“Our ambition and intent is clear. In the last 12 months, EY has already invested in its regional transactions practice with additions to our debt advisory, corporate finance, valuations, tax, law, strategy and operations capability, which puts us in great shape to provide the support our clients need whether that’s buying and integrating a business, raising debt or capital on the public markets or looking at disposing of non-core assets. Take this capability, coupled with our analytical technology, and we really do have a compelling proposition.
“I’m very fortunate that my career has allowed me to work in so many countries and work with so many brilliant people and businesses and I look forward to that good fortune continuing here in Yorkshire!”
Suzanne Robinson, managing partner for EY in Yorkshire, said: “It’s great to be able to announce Mark’s arrival right at the start of a new year – underlining EY’s commitment to growing our presence in this region. One of my key objectives has been to grow our Yorkshire Transactions Advisory business, and I look forward to seeing the local transactions team further grow and flourish under Mark’s guidance.”
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Cross Hills-based Airedale Chemical has promoted a manager to procurement director, joining the five strong board of directors at the family-owned firm.
Tony Howell, who joined the manufacturer in 2010 and worked in sales prior to launching the procurement department in 2015 to help re-structure the business, has joined the board to further support the company’s diversity strategy and strengthen supplier relationships.
Chris Chadwick, managing director at Airedale Chemical, said: “I am thrilled to announce Tony Howell has joined the board as procurement director. Tony created and developed our procurement department with exceptional success, adding significant value to all aspects of our company.
“I would like to congratulate Tony in joining the senior team and look forward to working closely with him to continue developing the company.”
Airedale Chemical was established in 1973 and provides chemicals and contract manufacturing to markets including agriculture, dairy, water treatment and waste management.
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Lhasa, based in Leeds, has recruited a chief scientific officer.
Lhasa, which creates expert and user-friendly prediction software and chemical databases for scientists in the pharmaceutical, cosmetics and chemistry-related industries to use in metabolism, toxicology and related sciences, has promoted Dr Richard Williams to the role.
Dr Williams succeeds Dr Chris Barber, who took over the role of CEO in June. He previously held the role of senior principal scientist in the science team, taking a strategic lead in the development of in silico solutions for assessing chemical safety, including Derek Nexus, the expert, knowledge-based software that provides users with accurate toxicity predictions.
He said: “I have spent 13 years as a Lhasa scientist and I’m both excited and honoured to now become Lhasa’s new Chief Scientific Officer. It’s an exciting time for our industry and there are significant opportunities to deliver world-class scientific research and software.”
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Sheffield software company WANdisco has appointed Ramki Thurimella as VP of research in the company’s Silicon Valley operation.
Thurimella joins the company with extensive experience in algorithm design and information security.
David Richards, CEO and co-founder of WANdisco, said: “I am delighted Ramki has joined WANdisco to explore new applications for our unique replication technology. With the growth of distributed ledger technologies such as Blockchain, I have no doubt that Ramki’s background in encryption will be invaluable as we look to address challenges prevalent in new distributed computing applications.”
