Bishop Fleming’s Plymouth office has announced two promotions. Jon Sparkes, a senior tax manager in the business tax team has been promoted to tax director, while Steve Tucker of the business services team has been promoted to senior manager. Sparkes has nearly 20 years' experience of working with owner-managed businesses in Devon, while Tucker has over 30 years' experience with the firm and specialises in advising businesses and their owners, many of which are in the healthcare sector, across Plymouth and Devon.

Andrew Gregory has joined Leonard Curtis Business Solutions Group as in-house legal counsel — a new position created by the insolvency specialist to provide corporate/SME clients and advisers with a breadth of services on a national level. It also paves the way for the development of further group services, including legal support to clients and contacts in the long term. Gregory brings experience in restructuring, commercial and financial litigation garnered at business law firm DWF, where he worked for 25 years in a number of roles, including managing partner and head of business restructuring.

BDO has appointed tax partner Tony Spillett to head up the firm’s technology and media team. Previous head Julian Frost will continue to work with BDO’s technology and media clients, with an increasing focus on BDO’s private equity work. Spillett has specialised in the sector at BDO for more than 20 years, amd has specialist expertise in tax advisory work on all types of transaction and also innovation tax incentives.

PwC has hired Patrick Spens, a former regulator, hedge fund founder and city trader, to help consider the implications and possible applications for blockchain, the technology that powers the crypto-currency Bitcoin. He brings 30 years of experience in the financial services industry, most recently as head of market monitoring at the Financial Conduct Authority. Prior to that, he founded hedge fund Copenhagen Capital in 2005 and before that was head of equity and alternative execution trading at Citigroup for EMEA.

Andrew Coles has been named as head of pensions at KPMG in the UK, succeeding Andrew Cawley who retires from KPMG after 21 years with the firm, although he will continue to work in a consultancy role for a period of time. Coles has 25 years’ experience in the pensions industry, most of which has been with KPMG.  His career at KPMG began in Birmingham before becoming a partner in the south region in 2006.