This week’s National appointments: Featuring KPMG, ThinCats and River Capital

This week’s round up of national appointments includes KPMG, ThinCats and River Capital. Read on to find out more.

Gill Hopwood-Bell, Roger Nixon, Joe Manning, Lizzie Meadowcroft and Phil Roper: KPMG

Business advisory firm KPMG has strengthened its audit, deal advisory and tax services in Manchester after promoting five long-standing members of its team to partner.

Gill Hopwood-Bell has been promoted to audit partner following 17 years in the field. She began her career in KPMG Manchester’s audit practice working with large private and listed audited entities, after gaining experience in transactions and in the mid-tier environment.

Roger Nixon has also become an audit partner. He has worked with KPMG since 2003 and spent two years in its Adelaide office in Australia. Roger specialises in listed and regulated audits, supporting retail sector firms in particular.

KPMG’s deal advisory practice has also promoted two colleagues to partner. Joe Manning is promoted to partner in the infrastructure advisor group following nine years with the firm. Joe has 15 years’ experience advising throughout the lifecycle of major government and infrastructure projects and is a Chartered Quantity Surveyor by profession.

Lizzie Meadowcroft becomes a partner in KPMG’s Deal Advisory Strategy Group. A former graduate trainee at KPMG, Lizzie now specialises in supporting her clients to drive strategic value through transactions by advising on deal strategy and design. She works with mid-market and private equity-backed businesses and global consumer brand clients.

Meanwhile, the firm’s Manchester tax and legal division has made Phil Roper partner. Phil has more than 20 years of corporate tax advisory experience, including five years working in the pharmaceutical industry and over 10 years with KPMG.

James Pepper, ThinCats

ThinCats, the leading alternative lender to mid-sized SMEs, has appointed James Pepper as executive director of Client Services. James, who will be responsible for the Transaction Management and Client Services teams, will join ThinCats in February 2023.

James has more than 20 years’ banking and capital markets experience having previously worked in senior leadership roles at Lloyds TSB, RBS, Barclays and HSBC.

Most recently James was managing director, global head of lending & transaction management at HSBC from 2018 to 2020, followed by a role as senior director, financial services advisory group at Alvarez & Marsal from December 2020.

Amany Attia, CEO, ThinCats, commented: “I am delighted that James is going to be joining ThinCats’ senior leadership team. We have ambitious plans to scale our business over the next few years and James will have a key role in helping to achieve this.

“We are at an exciting stage in our growth trajectory and it’s testament to our progress in recent years that we can attract people of James’s calibre in our mission to deliver better funding solutions for mid-sized SMEs across the UK.”

James added: “I am very pleased to be joining ThinCats early next year. ThinCats is leading the way in providing access to funding in an area of the market that has been underserved for many years.

“I look forward to using my skills and experience to help deliver an excellent service to the increasing number of corporate finance advisers and borrowers that are choosing ThinCats as their preferred funding partner.”

Martin Sutton, River Capital

River Capital has announced the appointment of Martin Sutton as a venture partner following the recent launch of its dedicated artificial intelligence fund, fund: AI, the “first of its kind” in the North. Martin joins River Capital, having spent the previous six years at Manchester based AI business PEAK.

As one of the first team members to join Peak in 2016, Martin held positions including commercial director, business development director, and chief revenue officer, where he led the global customer organisation and was responsible for sales, customer success and the data science teams.

Prior to PEAK Martin spent 20 years working in high growth teams at global tech firms such as Sun Microsystems, Hitachi Data Systems, Fujitsu and Dell EMC.

As venture partner, Martin will work with the fund: AI leadership team in enabling early-stage, data focussed businesses to achieve their full potential, raise the fund profile and help consolidate an already healthy pipeline of fund: AI investment prospects.

Martin commented: “This is a dream role for me at River Capital as I’m passionate about helping early-stage AI and data focussed businesses to achieve their full potential.

“Coupled with the fact that fund: AI has a laser focus on Northern businesses made this a no brainer for me, as I’ve always believed we have amazing tech firms in the North but they are sometimes overlooked and underserved compared to their London peers.”

River Capital CEO Mark Borzomato said: “We are thrilled to welcome Martin to the River Capital team in a Venture Partner capacity following the recent launch of fund: AI, hot on the heels of our recent rebranding and subsequent launch of the Business Growth Loan Fund.”

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By Matthew Neville – Correspondent, Bdaily

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