Appointments: Santander; Paragon; Slater & Gordon; BHP Corporate Finance; Leeds Met

SANTANDER Corporate & Commercial has appointed Ash Chopra as a director of growth capital for Yorkshire and the North East.

Covering the corporate business centres in Leeds, Newcastle and Sheffield, Chopra will specialise in working with growing businesses with an annual turnover of up to £25m that are seeking debt growth capital to develop the next stage of their business growth.

He joins an experienced team across the North including sector and product specialists in healthcare, manufacturing, renewables, asset, invoice and trade finance.

Chopra joined Santander in January from Finance Yorkshire and has more than 16 years’ experience across corporate finance, banking and private equity.

::: 

PARAGON Entertainment, the Yorkshire group that has the rights to develop a series of ‘Hammer House of Horror’ visitor attractions, has appointed Richard Arden as chief financial officer.

Arden joined Paragon Entertainment in 2012 as group head of finance. Prior to his time at Paragon, he held various CFO and FD roles across the IT, software and health sectors, including chief financial officer at Parseq, and finance director roles at Documetric, Debts.co.uk and Westfield Health.

Mark Pyrah, chief executive of Paragon Entertainment, said: “Richard is the natural fit for the role of chief financial officer given his expertise in both the financial and strategic demands of the group, as well as the wider industry.

“The group is embarking on an exciting period of growth, and we look forward to working closely with Richard to achieve our goals.”

:::

LAW firm Slater & Gordon will offer clinical negligence legal advice in Yorkshire after appointing specialist lawyer Rachel Brown to its Sheffield office.

Ms Brown is the first clinical negligence lawyer to work from Slater & Gordon’s Sheffield office. She joins from Irwin Mitchell, Sheffield, where she spent more than four years. She specialises in all types of clinical negligence cases, including birth injury, inquests, CJD cases, neurological and orthopaedic injury cases.

Brown said: “Clinical negligence has a devastating impact on the lives of victims and their families.

“It is an honour to help people in Sheffield and Yorkshire through what is very often one of the most difficult times of their lives and ultimately help them get the justice they deserve.”

:::

BHP Corporate Finance has recruited Matt Tice, who has recently joined the team in Leeds as a manager.

Tice has worked on a number of high profile deals over the past 12 months, most recently the disposal of Stobbarts to US firm Jacobs Engineering.

Hamish Morrison, head of corporate finance in Leeds, said: “We continue to experience increasing levels of deal activity and are very pleased to have been able to bring Matt on board.”

Tice’s appointment further strengthens BHP Corporate Finance’s presence in Leeds.

In 2012, Hamish Morrison and Andy Haigh joined the firm, followed by Harriet Gibbs later on in that year. This brings the team in Yorkshire to a total of 17 headed up by three partners, David Forrest, Don Gray and Hamish Morrison.

:::

LEEDS Metropolitan University has appointed Professor Christopher Prince as the new dean and pro vice chancellor of the faculty of business and law.

Prince will return to his home town of Leeds, joining the university on May 1 from Birmingham City University where he is currently executive dean of the Business School.

He is an economics and public policy graduate of Leeds Metropolitan’s predecessor institution Leeds Polytechnic.

Prince said: “I am thrilled and proud to have been asked to lead the faculty of business and law at a very exciting time in its development. The faculty has established a strong reputation and it is my intention to build on this over the coming years. I am certain that Leeds Business School and Leeds Law School have significant and leading roles to play in helping to develop our city and region.”