People: Blacks Solicitors; Rise at Seven; Senior Architectural Systems; and more

Leeds-based law firm, Blacks Solicitors, has promoted 28 employees across multiple specialist teams in the firm.
Ten of the teams at the firm have confirmed promotion of colleagues, including; Residential Property, Private Wealth & Succession, Real Estate, Commercial, IT, Family and Corporate.
Andrew Foulds (Family), Emma Garfitt (Residential Property), Annie Beaumont (Private Wealth & Succession), and James Ricketts (Risk & Compliance) have all been promoted to salaried partner.
Perdip Bhachu, Dean Goodwin, and Sarah Brown (Residential Property), Rowan Thomas and Jonathan Kay (Real Estate), Paula Moses (CDR), and Alex Hall (Corporate) have all been promoted to legal director.
Hayley Blackburn (Corporate) has been promoted to senior associate. She has been at the firm for more than seven years, starting her career at the firm as a paralegal and securing the Chartered Institute of Legal Executive (CILEX) qualification to become a chartered legal executive.
Blackburn said: “I’m eager to continue delivering highly valued and quality services in my new role. It’s been a joy to have helped improve and develop our Corporate specialism whilst being supported by the firm.”
Abbie Spence, Jack Parkinson, Will Ashton, Gulfraz Ahmed, and Liam Douglas (Residential Property) have all been promoted to senior associate and have been instrumental in the team’s growth in the Buy To Let sector.
Jack Dodd (Family), Jenna Keough (Private Wealth & Succession), Gul Shah (Real Estate), Shane Powell (IT), Alex Morris (Corporate), Beth Brindley (Commercial), and Clare Castillo (Real Estate Litigation) have all been promoted to associate.
They are joined by Rebecca Pickles, David Lawes, Caithlin McParland and Paris Bentley (Residential Property).
The recent promotion of James Ricketts highlights the firm’s commitment to fostering career development opportunities across all areas as he is promoted to a partner in the Risk & Compliance team.
Ricketts said: “I am pleased to have the opportunity to become a partner, even in a non-fee-earning role.
“Blacks has created a fantastic environment for development and growth and I am thrilled that my commitment to the firm has been recognised. I look forward to an exciting 2025 and future at Blacks.”
Chris Allen, managing partner, added: “As a leading independent law firm we are committed to investing in our team and acknowledging their hard work and dedication.
“Their enthusiasm, teamwork, and collaboration has been vital for the continued success of the firm.”
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Bet365’s head of content, James Clark, has joined Sheffield-based creative agency Rise at Seven to lead its growing sports and editorial arm.
Clark spent 10 years at ITV Sports as its news and sports editor, previous to that as their TV presenter.
He was head hunted by Bet365 to head its organic content and editorial across 16 markets.
Rise at Seven has appointed Clark as its head of organic growth and content. He will manage all content within the agency and grow its sports arm across the UK, US and Europe.
He will drive multi-channel organic growth initiatives for the agency’s clients, ensuring seamless alignment between strategy, data, and impactful storytelling to deliver exceptional performance.
Clark said: “Search is constantly transforming and evolving, so to join such an innovative and renowned agency in this field is a real honour and privilege.
“With the continual growth of how and where consumers are searching, having an organic content marketing strategy that is tailored to your brand and customers is extremely important for all businesses.
“I’m extremely excited to bring my global content experience to Rise and unlock exponential organic growth for our clients.”
Rise at Seven CEO, Carrie Rose, added: “We have plans to treble our content output for clients in the next two years and to do that, we needed a leader who could create multi format content which pushes users down the funnel.
“At Rise, we help brands be more discoverable when exploring and evaluating online and James’s level of expertise and creativity from being the news and sports editor at ITV and leading a global function at Bet365 means he is the perfect person to take charge of this for us.
“Our sports arm of Rise at Seven is also a key area of growth for the business.
“I started my career creating content marketing strategies for Ladbrokes for five years, and went on to apply my learnings from within highly regulated industries to fast moving brands in travel, fashion, beauty, finance and more.
“I believe if you can market a sports betting brand, you can market anything.”
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Senior Architectural Systems, a manufacturer of aluminium windows, doors, and curtain walling based in Denaby, South Yorkshire, has appointed Luke Osborne to the newly created role of UK sustainability lead.
Osborne brings with him a wealth of industry experience, having worked with a number of major building products manufacturers to help establish and develop environmental initiatives, sustainability policies, and reliable carbon data sources.
In his new role, he will advance the existing work Senior has been doing to reduce the environmental impact of its business operations, and provide its customers with accurate calculations relating to embodied and operational carbon.
Key to this will be the development of environmental product declaration (EPD) documents across Senior’s extensive range of aluminium windows, doors, and curtain wall systems, as well as a robust roadmap to support Senior’s net zero, biodiversity, and waste reduction targets.
Osborne will work with Senior’s architectural advisory team to support the company’s main contractors and specification partners, as well as ensuring its network of fabricators and installers can also benefit from the company’s investment in sustainability.
He said: “My role here will be focused on driving sustainability across the whole business and building on what is already a strong foundation.
“Senior has made significant advances in recent years, particularly in developing its product range and using lower-carbon aluminium.
“I am looking forward to working with both colleagues and customers to ensure the work we are doing really makes a difference in terms of reducing our own carbon footprint, supporting supply-chain targets, and improving the standards for sustainability across the fenestration sector.”
Mark Wadsworth, managing director, added: “Sustainability has always been an important part of our ethos here at Senior, and I am pleased to have Luke on board to help us continue our journey and take us to the next level.
“We are proud to be UK-owned and UK-based, which gives us means that our sustainability policies and procedures directly align with the specific needs of our UK customers.
“Luke will take the lead on this next chapter of our sustainability strategy, supporting our customers to achieve compliance with the relevant regulations, targets, and the proposed UK Net Zero Carbon Building Standard.”
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Yorkshire law firm, Lupton Fawcett, has made three new hires in its private client, family and debt recovery teams.
Edward Allen, Sally Hirst and Thomas Rudd all started new roles this week.
The three new colleagues follow the appointment of two new team members – Jonathan Exall and Harjit Singh – by the firm earlier this month.
Allen, partner in the private client team, will be based at the firm’s York office.
He will advise on all aspects of private client work including inheritance tax planning, wills, trusts, succession planning, lasting powers of attorney and Court of Protection applications.
As a member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, his role will focus on estate planning advice and estate administration for a wide range of clients.
His particular areas of expertise are advising high net worth individuals, owners of family businesses and farming families, as well as trust administration.
He said: “I pride myself on being able to deliver practical solutions to clients’ estate planning needs, providing bespoke advice in a straightforward and understandable manner.”
Hirst, who joins the family team as a solicitor, is experienced in child abuse compensation cases; family law, including arrangements for children and financial proceedings relating to divorce and separation; and wills and probate.
She said: “Family law is a rewarding area to work in and I feel passionate about helping clients that are going through some of the most stressful times of their lives. I am happy to be joining the Lupton Fawcett team.”
Rudd, debt recovery executive, already has three years of debt recovery and litigation experience and is working towards his CILEX qualification.
His expertise ranges from parking charges and utility bills to commercial debts and contract breaches.
He said: “I am excited to see what new challenges Lupton Fawcett will bring and to get involved in the progression of debt recovery matters.”
James Richardson, managing partner, said: “We are thrilled to welcome Edward, Sally and Thomas to Lupton Fawcett and are now prepared for a strong performance in the coming year and beyond.
“We are in an excellent position to deliver the best results for our clients across all our areas of practice and we are looking forward to a very successful 2025.”