Member Article

This week’s North East appointments

A roundup of appointments from across the region this week.

Johnson Tucker, Malcolm Angus and Elena Contogiorgi-Smith

North East chartered surveying firm Johnson Tucker has welcomed Malcolm Angus as associate partner to its commercial valuations team and new senior surveyor, Elena Contogiorgi-Smith to its growing management department, at its Newcastle headquarters.

Elena commented: “I’m really excited to be joining Johnson Tucker at a time of transition and growth. They’ve enjoyed great success in growing their property management portfolio, particularly with hard-to-manage, large-scale block management projects. I look forward to helping the team get to grips with delivering a first class service in this field.”

Meanwhile, Malcolm Angus joins the company as an RICS registered commercial valuer, having qualified under the guidance of Andrew Tucker and David Johnson 12 years ago at their previous agency. Having practiced in the region for the large part of his career, he has an in-depth knowledge of the North East property and investment market and particularly strong experience in acting on behalf of most major banking institutions.

Malcolm said: “Johnson Tucker enjoys a broad regional spread of client activity right across the North East, and its great to join them at a time when the business is growing. It’s especially nice to be working with Andrew and David again having learnt so much from them when I was starting out in the industry.”

Sarah Glendinning, CBI

The CBI has appointed Sarah Glendinning as its new Regional Director for the North East.

Sarah joined the CBI at the start of 2015 as Assistant Regional Director having arrived from Nigel Wright where she was an Executive Search Consultant recruiting at senior management, director and non-executive levels throughout the north of the UK.

Using the experience she has gained working for both multi-nationals and smaller exporting manufacturers, Sarah aims to continue to promote the region and facilitate opportunities for regional businesses to flourish. She has had an active interest in education throughout her career and continues to be passionate about developing talent and skills.

Since taking up her role with the CBI, Sarah has continued to work with regional organisations supporting women and their development within the construction and property sectors and she is also a Governor of Hilton Primary Academy in Blakelaw.

Sarah said: “I am delighted to make the step up to Regional Director in the North East at a time when big issues are at hand, such as devolution and the UK’s future relationship with the EU.

“The area has a rich mix of top-class firms and I intend to make sure that our strong business voice is heard, both regionally and nationally.”

CiSP, David Lloyd

North East information security specialist David Lloyd has been selected as the regional link with police to help inform and educate businesses about cyber security threats.

David, who heads Newcastle-based Signacure Resilience, will act as champion to support the operation of the North East launch of CiSP’s (Cybersecurity Information Sharing Partnership) regional information sharing initiative, on behalf of the UK’s National Computer Emergency Response Team, CERT-UK.

In his role, David will be encouraging businesses’ to join and actively take part in CiSP’s North East regional sharing initiative.

DS Martin Wilson of Durham Constabulary, Regional Cyber PROTECT Co-ordinator who is the regional police point of contact for the scheme, said: “We’re delighted to be working with David and CiSP to help protect businesses from cybercrime in the North East and together we’re aiming to ensure North East businesses and their data remain as safe and secure.”

Silverstone Building Consultancy, Henry Scott & Sharon Tennet

Newcastle-based Silverstone Building Consultancy has appointed a new chartered building surveyor and secretary.

The firm of building surveyors and project managers has grown from two to eight members of staff over the past six years, since it was first established by founding directors Ben Hunter and Richard Farrey.

Henry Scott, who previously worked within the building consultancy department at Bilfinger GVA’s Newcastle office for over seven years, has joined the firm to assist in all aspects of building consultancy.

Sharon Tennet, who previously worked within the Commercial Property team at Muckle LLP, has also joined the team as a secretary to support the busy office.

Richard Farrey, director as Silverstone said “Following a period of sustained growth we required an additional chartered surveyor with the right level of qualifications and experience, who is capable of delivering a high level of service to our clients.

“Henry will be able to start working on projects immediately to support the directors and the rest of the team across all aspects of building consultancy. We also welcome Sharon who will provide much needed secretarial support to our office manager.”

Harry, Ripa, Adam and Hafzah, Double Concentrate

Digital agency Double Concentrate has added four new members to its team of designers, copywriters, illustrators and web developers.

Design for Industry graduate Harry Hughes has joined the firm as business development manager, responsible for building and maintaining client relationships.

Marketing, PR and advertising graduate Ripa Begum has joined as a marketing strategist, responsible for turning leads into potential clients with strategies and processes in place to maintain them.

Sunderland University students Adam Mckenna and Hafzah Zamir have also joined the firm as web developer and social media manager, respectively.

Godfrey Syrett, Neil Ross

Furniture manufacturer, Godfrey Syrett, has appointed a new regional business development manager to drive sales within the North East commercial sector

The firm has appointed Neil Ross, who previously worked as a national sales manager at Staffline and brings with him over 14 years’ experience in sales across all sectors. Neil will help the business deliver its five-year growth strategy through generating new sales leads and contacts in the North East business community, and promoting the business’ products and services to corporate occupiers.

Neil Tweddle, managing director of Godfrey Syrett said: “We are very pleased to welcome Neil to the team at Godfrey Syrett. We have created this new job role to specifically target growth in the region’s commercial sector and we believe Neil has the right experience, skills and contacts to lead this expansion. By targeting corporate occupiers we plan to increase our turnover from £25m to £40m by 2020.”

Neil Ross added: “I have joined Godfrey Syrett at a very exciting time in terms of their growth plans, they have developed an excellent reputation for delivering furniture solutions to the public sector throughout the UK. I am very passionate about the North East and I am looking forward to presenting their services to businesses throughout the region.”

Newtons Solicitors, Joanne Jackson and Lisa Stronach

Fast-growing law firm Newtons Solicitors has boosted its North East teams with two new appointments.

The two, a solicitor and a conveyancing executive, who will work out of Newtons offices in Darlington and Stokesley, have joined from two North East law firms.

They are solicitor, Joanne Jackson, who joins the Wills and Probate Team at Thorp Parker Newtons, Stokesley, and conveyancing executive, Lisa Stronach, who joins the Residential and Private Client Team at Newtons Solicitors’ Darlington office.

Joanne Jackson, who joins the nine-strong Wills and Probate Team at Newtons Solicitors, from Askews Solicitors, Middlesbrough, qualified in 2007 after attending College of Law, York. She has specialised in Wills and Probate work since 2012 and will assist clients around Stokesley and surrounding areas of North Yorkshire.

Conveyancing executive, Lisa Stronach, who joins from the Darlington office of BHP, has worked in the legal profession since leaving school and has been a fee earner since 1997. She specialises in residential conveyancing and also has experience of wills and probate work. She will support clients in the Darlington, Newton Aycliffe and Teesside areas.