People: Dow Schofield Watts; Rollits; Wastewise; and more
Dow Schofield Watts has expanded its transaction services team in Yorkshire & the North East with the appointment of Will Parry as an executive.
Parry is a chartered accountant with six years’ experience. This includes two years in audit with Deloitte in Leeds, where he led audits on a wide variety of clients including water services, manufacturing, property and private equity-backed businesses.
Most recently, he was a financial planning analyst at a business in the property investment sector.
His appointment follows a busy period for the team, which is led by Sophie Colloby and Jonathan Steed and which has advised on more than 40 transactions by corporate and private equity clients in the past 12 months.
Colloby said: “Will’s experience makes him a valuable addition to our team. Given current levels of activity and a strong pipeline, Will’s appointment gives us additional capacity in what continues to be a very busy deals market.”
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Law firm Rollits LLP has bolstered its dispute resolution team with the addition of two solicitors who began their careers as paralegals with the firm.
Abbie Bielby has been recruited into the department after recently being admitted as a solicitor on completion of her period of recognised training. She joins Harriet Kingston, who completed her training at Rollits and qualified as a solicitor in 2021.
Bielby studied at Longcroft School in Beverley before gaining her Law Degree with Honours at Queen Mary University in London in 2015.
She also gained a distinction in her LPC LLM in Professional Legal Practice BPP in Leeds and joined Rollits in 2018 as a property paralegal with the social housing team based at York.
Kingston studied at St Swithun’s in Winchester and Bryanston School, Dorset, before moving north to study at Hull University, graduating in biomedical sciences in 2012.
She received a commendation in 2013 for her Graduate Diploma in Law at York College of Law and undertook several paralegal positions at firms in both Leeds and York, before joining Rollits in 2017 following her graduation from BPP in Leeds with a distinction in her LPC.
Both Bielby and Kingston worked as paralegals within the social housing team before successfully gaining training contracts with the firm.
Chris Drinkall, who is head of Rollits’ Dispute Resolution Department, said: “Harriet and Abbie are great additions to the team and it is particularly pleasing that they both came through the property paralegal route, gaining even more experience and knowledge during their periods of recognised training.”
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Michael Wheatley has been announced as Wastewise’s new operations director, following Bob Wilkes recent promotion to managing director.
Wheatley originally joined Hull-based waste management specialist Wastewise in May 2020 when he took on the role of senior operations & compliance manager.
A major part of this role was ensuring compliance with health, safety and environmental legislation across the three Wastewise operating sites.
Prior to this he has a long history in managerial operations roles with large UK companies, managing and developing multiple site locations, working to implement progressive safety improvement objectives whilst leading on contract negotiations.
In his new role, he will be responsible for the safe, efficient and profitable running of the sites across the Wastewise group, focusing on closer co-ordination in the sharing of capacity, facilities, staff and product distribution to maximise output.
He will also be championing a more unified company staffing approach and extensive in-house training programmes to support safer working practice.
Wheatley said: “I have plans to consolidate the already high standards set in Safety, Environmental, and Quality output that I’ve worked on since 2020.
“I have an ongoing programme of plant and capital investment that I am committed to and will support the board in its ambitious five-year development strategy.”
Wilkes, managing director, said: “Michael is a hands-on manager who leads by example, engaging fully with employees at all levels to ensure they are onboard with the objectives and direction of the business. He is a perfect fit for the task at hand.”
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The managing director of a Doncaster precision engineering company has been appointed to the industry advisory board of the AMRC Training Centre.
The centre, part of the University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, has a mission to nurture and develop the advanced engineers of tomorrow.
Paul Stockhill, managing director at Agemaspark and vice chair of Doncaster University Technical College, has been named the newest member of the centre’s industry advisory board.
He was nominated for one of the 10 places on the board by Marc Rhodes, business development account manager at the training centre. Rhodes made the nomination based on Agemaspark being an experienced apprenticeship employer that can provide strong representation of an SME in the manufacturing industry.
The training centre’s apprentices are able to draw on the experience of an elite Russell Group university and the resources of a world-leading research and innovation organisation, whose partners include Siemens, Boeing, Rolls-Royce, Toyota Motorsport and McLaren as well a number of small and medium sized enterprises.
Two current Agemaspark apprentices, Alex Wilcox and Jay Ross, are working with the AMRC Training Centre having started apprenticeships with Agemaspark in September 2020.
Stockhill said: “I’m thrilled to be joining the board of the AMRC Training Centre, which is a wonderful asset for the region.
“I know the centre’s work well and we have seen some of our own apprentices, including Alex and Jay, really benefit from the expertise and additional training they have received. Both are now in their second years and well on their way to becoming exceptional engineers.
“From a business perspective, being on the board will give Agemaspark a valuable voice in discussions about apprenticeships and the future strategy to nurture the next generation of industry professionals.”
