Here is our latest East Midlands round-up of appointments and promotions:
Nelsons:
East Midlands law firm Nelsons has welcomed a new senior associate and solicitor specialising in commerce and technology to its Nottingham office.
Sarah Eley specialises in advising on commercial agreements, data protection and e-commerce terms, having started her career with Mills & Reeve LLP before qualifying in 2016. She then moved to work in-house for Derby City Council in 2020.
She said: “Nelsons has a great reputation for its culture and for the service it provides to clients. They also have key values which align with my own, so this was the ideal next step in my career. My colleagues have made both my guide dog, Berry, and I feel incredibly welcome. In fact, Berry has already amassed a substantial fan club.
“I’m looking forward to being involved in business development and continuing to help as many clients as possible to achieve their objectives and exceed their expectations.”
Sarah will work alongside partner and solicitor Emma Toes who heads the intellectual property team at Nelsons.
Actons:
Contentious private client solicitor Nicola Parr has joined the dispute resolution team at independent Nottingham law firm Actons as a director. Nicola was prevously at Chattertons and before that Nelsons, and has specialised in contentious probate and court of protection work since qualifying as a solicitor in 2001.
Nicola helps private individuals resolve issues including disputes surrounding wills, executors, trusts and disputes over lasting powers of attorney. She also helps with contentious court of protection applications.
She said: “I’m delighted to have joined Actons to grow the firm’s contentious private client services and our profile in the marketplace. Now a few weeks in, I’ve got to say everyone at the firm has been fantastic and very welcoming.
“I was attracted to join Actons by the opportunity to grow the work area, but also to join a firm where I admired their culture, approach to hybrid working and their enviable position in the local market.”
Innes England:
East Midlands commercial property agent Innes England has announced a number of key promotions – including Matt Howson, who joined Innes England in 2016, being promoted to a shareholding director.
He said: “I’m delighted to have been asked to become an equity holding director in the company, and I'm looking forward to the more strategic role I will be playing for the wider business.
“I joined Innes England as a chartered surveyor and have since seen my career grow exponentially thanks to the opportunities and support that Innes England has provided, for which I am immensely grateful.
“This year, I hope to build the property asset management team’s successes from 2022 further, working alongside Gary Woodward and the rest of our hugely talented team, and am looking forward to seeing the new heights we can reach.”
The firm, which has offices in Nottingham, Derby, Leicester and Birmingham, has also announced several other promotions, including Hannah Vassey being promoted to finance director, and Ross Whiting becoming director of business space agency.
Hannah said: “I love working at Innes England. The company has supported me in carving out a role for myself that’s my own, promoting every step of my personal and professional growth along the way.
“The new capacity this promotion provides will allow me to engage more with the strategic decisions that are driving the business forward and is more of what I enjoy in my work already. I’m immensely grateful and keen to continue my work in my new role.”
Other changes include chartered surveyors Andrew Smith and Sam Hall moving up to associate director of professional services and associate director of retail and roadside respectively.
Morley Hayes:
Denise Oliver has become hotel manager at Derbyshire hotel, restaurant and golf complex Morley Hayes.
Denise joins the team, a few miles north of Derby, from Premier Inn hotels where she spent more than 26 years working in managerial roles.
She joined Premier Inn after graduating from university and since then has held positions including duty manager, reception manager, general manager and operations manager.
Most recently, she was hotel manager for three sites across the East Midlands.
Denise will head up the management team at Morley Hayes Hotel and oversee the day-to-day operations.
Denise said: “I’m really excited to have been appointed manager of the Morley Hayes Hotel. I’ve visited Morley Hayes for many events in the past and I’ve always been impressed with the fabulous hotel and the facilities on offer.
“What attracted me to Morley Hayes is the fact that the business is family and owned and run and there is a lot of investment back into the business.
“I have worked in the hotel industry for more than 26 years, and have gained a breadth of knowledge, which I look forward to utilising in my new role at Morley Hayes.”
The 32-room, four-star Morley Hayes hotel is set in the heart of the Derbyshire countryside overlooking parkland golf courses.
XPO:
Transportation services provider XPO has appointed David Picking to lead the company's technology organisation in the UK and Ireland.
He reports to Dan Myers, managing director for the region, as well as Nigel Rouch, head of strategic projects and technology – Europe.
Mr Picking has more than three decades of technology leadership experience in the retail, pharmaceutical, leisure, and logistics sectors, including the implementation of sophisticated IT solutions for supply chain operations.
Prior to joining Northampton-based XPO, he served as chief information officer for Europe, the Middle East, India, and Africa at Likewize, a global technology services company. Before that he held senior positions with SIG plc, Wincanton plc, and The Co-operative Group.
He holds a degree in business computing from Staffordshire University, and numerous business and IT leadership qualifications from the University of Oxford and Henley Business School.
XPO provides transport services in Europe, including technology-enabled truckload, less-than-truckload, truck brokerage, managed transport, last mile and freight forwarding.
University of Nottingham:
Two new experts have joined the Food Innovation Centre team at the University of Nottingham.
Food innovation technologist Kavya Krishnamurthy and Research Associate Vlad Dinu are now part of the team offering expertise in food innovation to small and medium-sized food and drink manufacturers in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
Richard Worrall, who heads the Food Innovation Centre, said: “Both Kavya and Vlad bring substantial knowledge of food and drink innovation to the table, and we are delighted to welcome them on board.”
The Food Innovation Centre, based at the Bioenergy and Brewing Science building at the University of Nottingham’s Sutton Bonington campus, offers free support to eligible small and medium-sized food and drink manufacturers in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.
Node4:
Hybrid cloud provider Node4 has announced that Hannah Birch has joined the company as managing director digital and group board member.
Hannah will lead the Node4 Digital Business and having spent 11 years at Accenture where she led the company’s UK technology business for insurance and was a member of the technology leadership team for the UK & Ireland.
She started her career at oil and gas giant BP and later held leadership positions at Fujitsu Services UK and Computacenter.
Node4 has its head office in Derby and operations around the UK and in Dubai.
She said: “I am so excited to join Node4, one of the few service providers that meets organisations at an inflection point where they are looking to leverage technology to drive transformational change to their business.
“The group capabilities, strengthened with that of the recent acquisitions, makes us a one stop shop for our clients.”
Weduc:
Loughborough-based school software provider Weduc has announced two key senior changes.
Rob Pointen has been appointed as CEO after joining the company as chief finance officer last year.
He has a proven track record in planning and facilitating strategic change in high growth companies across different sectors, and since joining the board, he has been instrumental in forging a strong, dynamic, standalone business after the demerger from the Accrosoft group last year.
Seasoned education software entrepreneur and business leader Paul Hughes has been appointed as non-executive chairman. He brings with him a wealth of education sector experience, previously as founder and CEO of ParentMail.
The pair will work closely together, implementing a strategy that builds on the success Weduc is seeing with its next-generation parental engagement software solution, which is proving a valued school upgrade to legacy systems.
Rob said: “We’ve got a really exciting future ahead. Our mission is to bring genuine service back into Edtech, which many schools today sadly find missing, especially from our larger corporate rivals.
“Many of our staff are ex-education professionals, who truly understand the problems facing schools and genuinely want to make a difference in children’s educational outcomes.”
