Dow Schofield Watts has promoted Pete Fendall to chief finance and operating officer. He joined the Daresbury-headquartered firm in 2021 as strategic projects director, playing a key role in the firm’s IPO before becoming COO and interim CFO last March at the age of 32. His promotion makes him one of the youngest CFOs on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM). Fendall qualified as a chartered accountant at Deloitte, where he was a senior manager and worked on complex audit and advisory engagements for private equity-backed and listed businesses.

Forvis Mazars has promoted Chris Ridley to tax partner and UK head of the innovation incentives (R&D) tax team, based in the Poole office. He has been with the firm for eight years and works with a diverse range of clients, from startups and SMEs to large international organisations. Ridley is also group head of the firm’s global innovation incentives board, collaborating internationally to develop intellectual property strategies while maintaining tax efficiency.

AAB has promoted four team members to partner as part of its programme to nurture home-grown talent. Ian Chapman becomes virtual finance function partner and head of strategic finance solutions, Graham Dyer becomes business advisory partner and head of digital advisory, Glenn Hogg becomes consulting partner and David McGinness, insolvency practitioner, becomes restructuring and recovery partner.

Lubbock Fine has appointed Rahid Rashid as a partner in the corporate finance team. Specialising in M&A, he will be advising clients on buying and selling businesses, and brings 15 years of corporate finance experience. Prior to joining Lubbock Fine, Rashid held in-house corporate finance roles at ASOS, Cera Healthcare and Portman Healthcare. He qualified as a chartered accountant with PwC and has previously held M&A advisory roles at Robert W. Baird and Duff & Phelps (now known as Kroll).

Kilsby Williams has appointed Anne Smith as partner at the Newport-based firm. She has several decades of experience in tax, and specialises in succession and estate planning, and advisory work for SME businesses, owner managers and individuals. She joins from Watts Gregory LLP, now part of MHA, where she was a tax partner for the last 20 years, having begun her career with KPMG, qualifying as a chartered accountant and a chartered tax adviser. She is a committee member of the south Wales branch of CIOT.

RSM UK has appointed Lisa Macpherson-Fletcher as tax partner in the private client advisory team. The chartered tax adviser has over 20 years’ experience advising clients in succession and estate planning for family businesses, particularly for large estates, landowners and agricultural clients. She is based in RSM’s Edinburgh office and supports clients throughout the UK. Having started her career at Deloitte on the graduate trainee scheme, previously she was a tax partner at Azets for two years, after a stint at Scottish law firm Gillespie Macandrew LLP as a tax director. 

Azets has hired Signe Hibbert, an experienced VAT partner as business demand in its London office continues to grow. She has more than 20 years’ experience in indirect tax, treatment of international supplies and EU VAT rules, and brings a valuable combination of technical expertise and people skills. Most recently she was director, procurement strategy at Electronic Arts, navigating global VAT and GST compliance and advisory matters for a rapidly changing technology business. She originally trained with Arthur Andersen, and also worked at PwC in indirect tax and as a tax manager at Toyota Financial Services.

BTG Advisory, part of Begbies Traynor Group, has appointed Greg Forde as a partner in its debt advisory team, based in London. He will focus on debt raising, restructuring, and refinancing, among other services. With nearly 15 years’ experience in corporate finance and debt advisory, he has significant expertise in complex European debt markets, banking relationships, and structuring. Previously he was a director, European debt advisory at Deloitte.

Grant Thornton is expanding its team in the south west and Wales with the appointment of Ben Stevens as a corporate finance assistant manager to meet growing demand from new and existing clients. He joins from Bishop Fleming where he was an assistant audit manager.

Moore Kingston Smith has appointed accounting and forensic expert Andrew Conti as a partner in its forensics team. He has been a full-time practitioner for over 25 years and brings extensive experience advising on civil litigation, including loss of profits claims, technical accounting issues, professional negligence matters and transaction disputes. He joins from RSM where he was a partner.

Quantuma has appointed forensic accounting expert, Hannah Griffin as a managing director in the west Midlands team and promoted Joffrey Tan to managing director in its Singapore office after three years with the firm. Griffin has 20 years’ forensic accounting experience and joins from Hazlewoods where she was head of forensic accounting, focusing on fraud investigations and dispute services and also spent a decade at EY. Tan will lead the Singapore team, working closely with Luke Furler, head of international, to further expand the firm’s presence across the APAC region. The ACCA chartered accountant was previously a manager at Deloitte Caribbean and Bermuda.

Kingsley Napley has appointed Christopher Perrin as a partner in its corporate, commercial and finance practice. He will lead the general commercial, technology and data legal advisory services, advising a wide range of businesses including start-ups, scale-ups, FTSE 250 companies and law firms. Perrin is a highly experienced commercial, technology, outsourcing and data lawyer, and was previously a consultant partner and solicitor at Spencer West.

Allinial Global has appointed Nimesh Shah, CEO at Blick Rothenberg, as vice chair of the global executive board of the international association of independent accounting and consulting firms. His strategic vision and ability will help the group build strong connections across borders as it looks to expand global membership. 

FloQast has appointed John Phillips as general manager, EMEA, to support and scale its international operations from its London HQ. He brings over a decade of experience working closely with CFOs to his new role. He joins from Zuora, where he most recently served as senior vice president of global alliances, having previously led the organisation’s EMEA business as general manager. Meantime, Adam Zoucha has been promoted to senior vice president of customer success and growth, based in Los Angeles, where he led the company’s initial international expansion.

Cooper Parry Law has appointed solicitor Anna Hewitson as a partner, and Kieran Cornish as manager. Both ex PwC, they bring a wealth of expertise and will be instrumental in developing the firm’s legal practice as an integrated part of the wider CP group, working alongside the tax, deals and accounting teams. Hewitson previously spent eight years at PwC, most recently as a director – solicitor, while Cornish was a senior associate.

Unit4 has appointed Simon Paris as CEO, succeeding Mike Ettling as head of the enterprise cloud provider, from the end of January. Paris has over 25 years of experience in the technology industry, including leadership positions at Infor and SAP. He is a non executive director at Thomson Reuters and is currently CEO at Finastra, a global provider of financial services software applications.