People: Directors join chamber; E-commerce agency expands; and more

Two senior directors have joined Doncaster Chamber to drive the development of its support for business and education across the borough. Stefan Rodgers and Andy Hibbitt will use their commercial expertise to enable the not for profit organisation to provide it’s 700+ members and partners with the services they need to grow and succeed.

Rodgers, in his role as Commercial Director, will help the Chamber to become the best in the UK by providing support to its members to grow their own businesses.  He will use his 11 years of experience at Board level in Sales, Marketing and Commercial roles, to help create mutually beneficial relationships through collaboration with stakeholders across Doncaster to improve jobs, education and people’s lives.

Rodgers said: “I’m delighted to be joining such an outstanding Chamber. The impact that they have is truly extraordinary and I’m looking forward to shaping new commercial opportunities through meaningful collaboration with our members, partners and key stakeholders.”

Hibbitt joins the team as Education and Skills Director to lead on the Chamber’s Doncaster Skills Academy (DSA) and related activities that bring together business and education. He brings with him a decade of experience within the education sector, having previously held senior positions in both a private training provider and large awarding organisation.

Hibbitt will grow DSA’s current portfolio to bridge the skills gap across the borough by connecting the skills needed by local employers with those of young people leaving the school system.

He said: “I’m excited to join Doncaster Chamber for the opportunity to build on the work already undertaken in the borough. I see this role as crucial to both supporting young people to make the best employment choices for themselves, and for the benefit of local businesses and the wider economy.”

Dan Fell, CEO of Doncaster Chamber, added: “The two new directors already have big ideas for developing the Chamber’s business support activities and Doncaster Skills Academy and to continue to be known as a Chamber that gets things done on behalf of members and the borough.

“They each have a wealth of commercial expertise that will benefit not only the Chamber as an organisation but our members, partners, skills and education providers, their workforces and the local economy.”

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9xb, an e-commerce agency based in Harrogate and Leeds, has announced two new appointments.

The business opened a new office in the Leeds Platform building in 2018 to house its team of developers.

Joanne Birtle joins the business in a new role as Marketing Communications Manager, bringing 20 years of b2b marketing experience, eight of which were with Financialforce, a Salesforce backed global cloud software business, heading up customer communications and global customer events.

James Hall joins the business as Senior Account Manager, bringing a wealth of experience from various roles in the telecoms industry, and more recently, working for Smart Insights, a publisher and learning platform.

Rob Burns, Managing Director, said: “Jo and James’s understanding of business to business marketing best practices and experience in the technology sector are key to our future direction, and will be a great asset to 9xb as we evolve our innovative eCommerce platform.

“These appointments continue our focus on cementing our position as a leading eCommerce platform provider and specialist eCommerce growth agency.”

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Saftronics, the Leeds-based automation company, has announced the appointment of Claire Balcerzak to its project management team.

Balcerzak joins as a Project Manager and will be responsible for ensuring that customers receive support and assistance through their whole journey with Saftronics from order placement, through engineering and manufacturing, right up to installation and commissioning on site.

Balcerzak joins Saftronics from a similar role at Yorkshire Water.

Mark Godfrey, Managing Director, said: “For us it is all about people taking pride in the service that our customers receive and in the quality of the products we design and manufacture.

“It was clear that Claire shared these core values and was familiar with our market sector. We are delighted to welcome her to the Saftronics family.”

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