This week's London appointments

Mark Alder, Picton

Picton has appointed Mark Alder as Head of Occupier Services.

In this newly created role, Mark will be responsible for ensuring Picton delivers first class services to its occupiers, with a focus on efficient and effective property management.

With more than 30 years of multi-disciplinary real estate solutions experience across a range of private and public sector businesses in the UK and Europe, Mark brings significant expertise to the role. Prior to joining Picton he was Head of Cushman & Wakefield’s Service Charge Consultancy team, which provided a broad range of service charge advice to occupiers.

Michael Morris, Chief Executive of Picton, commented: “Our occupier-focused approach has always been at the heart of what we do.

“Mark brings a huge amount of client facing experience to Picton as we continue to deliver our ‘Occupier First’ initiative across the portfolio.

“We will now be even better placed to put our occupiers’ experience at the centre of our service offering.”

Phoebe Foy-Phillips, Inoapps

Inoapps has announced Phoebe Foy-Phillips will take on a new role to further drive sales across Europe, Middle East and Africa.

As Inoapps’ new VP for sales EMEA, Phoebe will focus on growing the company’s presence across the region on the back of new investment into products and services.

Commenting on the appointment, Phil Burgess, managing director of Inoapps EMEA, said: “We’re delighted to appoint Phoebe to this new EMEA role.

“In her brief tenure at Inoapps, she’s demonstrated a laser focus on identifying and developing growth opportunities.

“I’m confident she will deliver for Inoapps’ partners and customers by demonstrating the value from our products and services.

“As Inoapps continues to grow its business throughout Europe, our industry specialisms deliver real customer value.

“This new role puts into action our transformational growth plans and will be key to Inoapps’ success going forward.”

Phoebe said: “I’m thrilled to be taking on this new challenge where there is a huge opportunity to build the Inoapps brand, grow our business and support more clients across EMEA regions.”

Viv Craske, Spoon Guru

London-based AI food technology start-up Spoon Guru has appointed Viv Craske as senior vice president of commercial development, to expand the strategy and sales team.

Viv’s role will include supporting the global rollouts and strategic partnerships with some of the world’s leading retailers including Tesco, Woolworths and Albert Heijn.

“I am delighted to welcome Viv to the business,” says Markus Stripf, co-founder and CEO of Spoon Guru.

“With an entrepreneurial mindset and exceptional commercial instincts, we look forward to him accelerating the brand forward to develop our sales teams and bring his in-depth knowledge to retailers.”

Viv added: “I am thrilled to be joining Spoon Guru’s leadership team and capitalising on the company’s expansion”

“My role will include driving the business forward by scaling sales operations, driving brand awareness, along with growing revenue across territories and the company’s market share.”

“I’m looking forward to helping partners see significant increases in consumer conversion rates, basket size, return rates and customer lifetime value through Spoon Guru’s food discovery AI platform.”

Sarah Waddington, Resonance

Resonance has appointed Sarah Waddington as a non-executive director to its board.

Sarah was previously CIPR president and managing director of Astute.Work.

Claire Williamson, managing director of Resonance, commented: “Having Sarah’s insight and guidance is invaluable to Resonance as it continues to grow.

“Her depth and breadth of knowledge is integral to helping us achieve our goals of shifting the gears on the B2B technology industry and providing data-driven, high impact programmes.”

Sarah added: “During my time as CIPR president, I worked to position public relations as a strategic discipline for businesses through the #PRPays campaign.

“Too often, PR is seen as a tactical offering and this is partly due to the fact that we are not joining the dots between investment and results.

“Resonance is changing this with data, fusing PR with aspects of digital marketing, sales enablement and SEO to measure and report metrics with a dashboard that is consumable by C-level executives.

“It joins the dots for the board and allows in-house comms managers to prove the value of their investment.”

Patrick Cantellow, Youth Employment UK

Youth Employment UK has announced that it has appointed Patrick Cantellow as director of social enterprise.

Patrick is a digital marketing executive at accountants, business and financial advisers Kreston Reeves.

Patrick, aged 20, first acted as a Youth Ambassador for Youth Employment UK in 2015 whilst studying for A-levels.

Since January 2019 he has sat as Chair of the Youth Ambassador Board, being appointed as a Non-Exec Director in January 2020.

Commenting on his appointment, Patrick said: “The apprenticeship route into employment extends well beyond learning a traditional trade – my own focuses on digital marketing – and Youth Employment UK plays a vitally important role in supporting both young adults and employers.

“I am thrilled to be appointed as a director. As a director I will work closely with Youth Employment UK founder and CEO Laura-Jane Rawlings on improving engagement with young professionals, students and employers together with the day-to-day running of the organisation.”

Laura-Jane Rawlings, founder and ceo of Youth Employment UK said: “We are delighted to welcome Patrick to our board, as a youth ambassador Patrick has represented the voices of young people at events across the UK and Europe too, he is a fantastic ambassador for young people and has already made significant contributions to our strategic direction.”

Alan Samuels, Encompass Corporation

Encompass Corporation has announced the appointment of Alan Samuels to the position of head of product.

Alan joins Encompass from Exiger, where he was VP and global head of DDIQ. He was previously head of entity verification services at Bloomberg KYC and head of reference data services at Opus-Alacra.

Alan will be responsible for leading the global product team as they continue to bring best-in-class solutions to an evolving client list.

Alex Ford, Encompass’ VP, said: “We are delighted to welcome Alan to the company.”

“Having worked across markets in the UK, Europe and the US, Alan brings with him a wealth of experience and a deep understanding of the challenges our customers face, as well as how to deliver what they need.

“At a time when increasingly stringent regulations necessitate more efficient and effective solutions than ever before, Encompass is being sought out by the market to help firms respond.

“Alan is a recognised KYC industry professional and the ideal product leader for us, as we continue to take strides with our customers in 2020.”

Alan added: “Encompass is recognised as one of the leading KYC solutions in a market ripe for automation and I’m thrilled to join the team at such a crucial point in the company’s growth.

“We have a great product offering already in place and I look forward to working with the team to develop and enhance this further, to the benefit of our customer base.”

George Whitehead / Alliott Cole, Angel CoFund

The Angel CoFund (ACF) has today announced two appointments to the team and board.

Investor and former chairman of the Angel CoFund, George Whitehead has moved into the position of partner.

Alliott Cole, the current CEO of Octopus Ventures, will also be joining the fund as non-executive director.

George commented: “Having been closely involved with the ACF since the outset I’m delighted now to be joining the team in an executive capacity as partner as we look to build on the success of our first fund.”

Alliott commented: “I look forward to being part of the team as the ACF continues to expand and raises new funds; shaping amazing businesses across every sector.”

Tim Mills, managing partner at the ACF, added: “We feel privileged to be able to announce two strong additions to the ACF team.

“Having worked closely alongside George for the last eight years in his capacity as a board member, I’m pleased to now be able to draw fully on his extensive knowledge and experience and bring him into the team full-time as a partner, especially as the fund continues to expand.”

“It’s also a great pleasure to have Alliott join the board, bringing with him a deep understanding of venture investing, an extensive network and exceptional insight from supporting and growing businesses across the UK and US.”

Farhaad Saleh, Residential People

Property portal Residential People has announced the recruitment of Farhaad Saleh to spearhead the emerging portals marketing activities.

Joining Residential People as the director of acquisition, Farhaad has previously worked at Rightmove, online fashion retailer Boohoo, and EGi Group (Property Link and Estates Gazette).

Commenting on his appointment, Farhaad said: ““What appealed to me about Residential People was its potential for growth and the fact that as a global marketplace, we have a unique opportunity to provide properties to potentially millions of customers around the world.”

In Farhaad’s new role at Residential People, he will have oversight of all marketing at Residential People and its commercial property platform, Commercial People.

Farhaad added: “As a relatively independent company, we are flexible, allowing us to make faster decisions and adapt to market opportunities as they appear, ensuring that we are always ready to meet the needs of both agents and the general public.

“One of the biggest concerns facing agents at the moment is their ever-increasing outlay on portal fees. At present, agents are forced to either pay the fees proposed to them by the big portals or face losing considerable custom as clients go elsewhere.

“I’ve always believed that agents shouldn’t have to pay extortionate amounts just to list their properties. So when Christopher May approached me and shared his vision for Residential People, it was an easy decision.”

Ryosuke Watanabe, head of SEO at Residential People and former head of SEO for commercial property platform, Movehut, said: “I am excited to be working in the team as Farhaad will bring a wealth of experience and help to drive forward the platform we have already built, our pledge to agents is to help them in achieving good quality enquiries as to be a viable alternative to some of the other portals.

“We are thrilled that Farhaad sees our proposition compelling enough to come and join the team.”