People: Bowman Riley; Irwin Mitchell; Mediaworks; and more
Tony Pleasants has been promoted to the board of directors at Yorkshire property consultancy Bowman Riley.
Starting his career at Bowman Riley’s head office in Skipton 14 years ago, Pleasants has held roles of increasing responsibility leading to a role in the senior leadership team in 2016.
He established the company’s London office in 2012, which has developed into a self-sustaining business capitalising on opportunities in the South of England.
Pleasants has overseen a series of prestigious projects including Shell’s first fully electric vehicle charging forecourt in Fulham, London, a new Hampton by Hilton hotel in Ashford, Kent and a major residential development for Countryside in Acton, West London.
In his new role, he will be focusing on business generation in a changing market and revising the company’s corporate responsibility and client feedback strategies.
He said: “I am excited to embrace the challenges that my new role will bring.
“I am really proud to be a part of Bowman Riley’s future and feel I can help steer the business to sustained growth and continued success.”
Michael Feather, managing director, said: “We are very pleased to welcome Tony to the board. He brings enthusiasm and energy to our senior management team.
“He is a dynamic leader and I am confident he will continue to deliver results.”
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A new paralegal and solicitor have joined national law firm Irwin Mitchell’s Leeds Tax, Trusts and Estates team.
Gail Sandford joins from law firm Blacks Solicitors LLP, where she was a senior probate manager.
Having specialised in private client work for over 20 years, she is an expert in will preparation, the administration of estates and trusts and the preparation of LPAs. She also has experience in Court of Protection work.
Sandford is an affiliate member of STEP and achieved an Advanced Certificate in Will Preparation in 2016.
Camilla Greenwood qualified as a solicitor in January this year and joins Irwin Mitchell from a firm specialising in advising individuals acting as attorneys, court appointed deputies and personal representatives of an estate.
Through her training, Greenwood has had a particular focus on advising clients on issues that arise in later life including care fee funding, benefit eligibility and Court of Protection applications to extend the powers of an attorney or deputy and the appointment of trustees.
She can also advise on the preparation of Lasting Powers of Attorney, trust and estate administration and wills.
The Leeds Tax, Trusts and Estates team is led by partner Andrea Jones, who is chair of STEP Yorkshire and who was promoted in May this year, having first joined Irwin Mitchell in 2018.
Since her arrival the team has grown to 11 people. It works with the national Tax, Trusts and Estates team across 14 other offices and with the Leeds Will, Trust and Estate Disputes team, led by national head Paula Myers.
Jones said: “It’s brilliant that we’ve been able to recruit Gail and Camilla. Both the team and our work have grown substantially over a short period of time, and we’re excited to be attracting both experienced and new talent.
“Gail and Camilla will work closely with our national team and will also add to our regional presence in the market as our work continues to extend beyond Yorkshire into national and international clients.
“Having Gail and Camilla on the team is an excellent start to the New Year, especially after such a challenging year in 2020.”
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Following consecutive record-breaking years of growth, Leeds-based digital marketing agency Mediaworks has announced the launch of a new PR category, installing Christian Cerisola to lead the operation.
Cerisola has an extensive background in both the media and communications industries.
He has launched and developed agencies, as well as leading award-winning rapid growth teams. Most recently, he headed the Northern operations of a London-headquartered PR agency.
Mediaworks CEO and founder Brett Jacobson said: “As Mediaworks has grown, the demand for us to offer a creative and intelligent PR function has rapidly risen.
“The PR industry has been slow to adapt to the vast amount of insights available through digital platforms and social listening.
“By capitalising on the substantial investments, we have made in big data analytics and artificial intelligence, we can help our clients to better understand how their customers make decisions and what drives their behaviours.
“We believe the future of the PR industry is helping clients strategically adapt their messaging to better influence their target audience and create a competitive advantage.
“We’ve been looking for the right person to lead our disruption of the PR market, and the appointment of Christian is the start of that journey.
“His reputation as one of the North’s foremost PR professionals is second to none.
“He has a huge amount of high-level PR experience, and I’m hugely excited about what can be achieved with him leading the charge on Mediaworks’ ground-breaking PR approach.”
Cerisola added: “We’re developing a far more intelligent PR and communications offering that’s based on an extraordinary level of insight and an unrivalled ability to accurately measure outcomes.
“When I originally met with Brett and understood Mediaworks’ deep understanding of client audiences, the opportunity to match that with clever, creative thinking and accurate outcomes was enormously enticing.
“We are sitting on something enormously potent here.”
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Victoria Coulson
Hudgell Solicitors’ chief executive Rachel Di Clemente has welcomed operations specialist Victoria Coulson in a role focused on ensuring the firm delivers on its key strategic growth targets over the next three years.
Coulson has been appointed head of operations and strategic delivery and starts in her new role at the Hull-based firm this week.
It brings a reunion with Di Clemente, as the pair previously worked together as part of the Executive Team at Minster Law.
Di Clemente said: “I’m delighted Victoria has agreed to join Hudgell Solicitors as she has a track record of delivering change and a real talent for guiding law firms through projects from inception to completion.
“As a business we have set ourselves some very ambitious goals for the next three years which will only be achievable if we invest to ensure that we have the right support around us to deliver them.
“We must continually challenge ourselves as to what legal consumers really want and be committed to developing our services to respond to their needs.
“Victoria’s role will include ensuring all key support systems are effective across the entire business; this is essential for us to meet the goals we have set and build on our position as a modern, agile law firm, focused on assessing our success through one overriding measure – client satisfaction.”
As head of operations at Minster Law, Coulson helped spearhead projects aimed at improving the customer journey and efficiencies through the use of technology.
Having had a brief spell previously with Hudgell in 2015 when her former firm was acquired by Neil Hudgell, Coulson says she is delighted to be rejoining at a time when it has secured national recognition for its work, including being named one of the UK’s Top 200 law firms by The Times.
She said: “I’m delighted to be given the opportunity to work alongside both Neil and Rachel.
“We all share a fundamental commitment to client care and recognise that law firms need to continuously evolve and adapt to continue to meet the needs of those using our services.
“A lot has happened since I left Hudgell in 2015. It has been transformed from a personal injury and medical negligence practice into one which now offers a wide range of legal services including an ever-expanding and hugely successful civil liberties and public inquiries team.
“The firm has been successful in evolving and adapting to changes in the market and my role will be to enhance that further.”
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York-based life sciences business, OptiBiotix Health has announced its intention to appoint Chris Brinsmead CBE as a non-executive director.
Brinsmead has a wealth of experience within the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors having previously been chairman of AstratZeneca Pharmaceuticals UK, President of AstraZeneca UK and Ireland and a life sciences advisor to the UK Government.
Neil Davidson, chairman of OptiBiotix said: “We are pleased to confirm the appointment of Chris to the OptiBiotix Board.
“The appointment comes at a critical point in the Company’s development as it continues to grow sales and expand into international markets with its first generation products, and commercialise its next generation microbiome modulating, SweetBiotix, and drug biotherapeutic products. Chris’s pharmaceutical, healthcare, investment, and board experience with a FTSE 350 company complements the current boards wealth of experience.”
