Grant Thornton has appointed Lauren Carlyle as practice lead for south west England and Wales. She will be responsible for leading and growing the firm’s regional team of almost 300 people based across the Bristol and Cardiff offices. Carlyle is a partner and pensions specialist with more than 20 years’ audit and assurance experience. She takes over from Jonathan Riley, previous practice leader in the area, who rotated out of the role at the end of 2023 to consider new challenges.

Bishop Fleming has appointed partner Kevin Connor to the position of head of academies, a brand new leadership role. Having joined the firm as a trainee in 2000, he progressed through its managerial ranks, and was appointed partner in May 2021. Connor has 24 years’ experience in delivering audit and assurance services working with a diverse range of schools and organisations.

TaxAssist Group has strengthened its board of directors hiring Nic Redfern as chief financial officer to work on the franchise group’s growth plan, targeting an IPO within five years. He trained with EY and then moved into industry where he has spent his career working in the financial services and digital sectors. After four years with Virgin Money, he spent 12 years with Optimise Media Group. He then moved to a fractional CFO role and worked with several high growth businesses as an executive director to devise and deliver strategy for the shareholders. This included the scaling and subsequent sale of Notice Media Ltd to Nerdwallet Inc.

Evelyn Partners has promoted partner Helen Bassett to professional services managing partner of its Bristol office. She has been with the group for more than 20 years, having joined the Bristol office of what was Solomon Hare in 2000 as an apprentice. She specialises in supporting high growth, entrepreneurial businesses. Business restructuring specialist Chris Marsden has been hired as a partner in the Bristol restructuring & recovery team. He joins the firm from BDO where he was a partner. Both appointments come as Evelyn Partners prepares to re-locate later this year from its current Bristol premises at Portwall Place to the new EQ development. Meantime, the firm has hired Andrew Middleton as group chief marketing and commercial officer. He will join the group executive committee and report directly to group CEO Paul Geddes, and will have accountability for delivering the group’s commercial strategy and reorganising the firm’s business development and marketing functions into a single structure. He joins from British Gas, where he was managing director of British Gas Zero.

PwC continues to invest in its deals practice with the appointment of Giorgio Libotte as partner in the value creation and realisation team. He joins PwC from Nextalia Private Equity Fund based in Milan, where he was a partner and member of the investment committee. Before setting up Nextalia, he spent 16 years at consultancy firm McKinsey with his most recent role as partner and leader of their European private equity and corporate finance practices. Giorgio brings over 20-years of private equity experience. In his new role, he will be focused on helping clients with their market opportunities in pre-deal value creation strategy through to post deal value realisation and transformation.

Armstrong Watson has promoted Steve Preston to audit and assurance partner. He joined the firm in 2022, after 15 years with BDO in Leeds, at the time the firm acquired ASE Professional Services in Manchester. He has already made a significant contribution to the audit service line and now heads up the Manchester office and automotive sector.

Magma has made nine senior promotions across the firm’s audit, business services, corporate tax and private client tax teams. In audit, Ryan Parkin and Matt Norris have been promoted to associate director, while Mark Freeth has been promoted to senior manager in the business services team. In corporate tax, Vicky Tunaley and Pam Keogh have been promoted to associate director, while Amy Read, Jade Varden, Richard White and Rebecca Mason have all been promoted to senior manager in the private client tax team.

Mayer Brown has hired Ben Eaton as a partner in the tax practice in London where he will focus on the tax aspects of cross-border real estate transactions and investment funds. He has extensive experience advising on the tax aspects of real estate investment, financing, development, and leasing, as well as the structuring of funds and joint ventures investing in real estate and real estate debt. He joins from Greenberg Traurig, where he was a shareholder. He is a member of The Law Society’s tax committee and an associate member of the British Property Federation tax committee and the Stamp Taxes Practitioners Group.

Squire Patton Boggs has appointed David Nisbet as a partner in its tax strategy & benefits practice group in London. He specialises in tax and structuring in the funds and private equity sector, and joins from Osborne Clarke where he has been a partner for over five years and leads the private equity tax team. He was previously at White & Case. Nisbet advises multinational corporations, funds, financial sponsors, family offices, senior management teams and ultra-high net worth individuals on the tax implications of UK and cross-border investments, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, fund formations, reorganisations and financing transactions.

The Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) has appointed Jonathan Gorvin to its executive team. He has 15 years of experience in policy and strategy and will take on the official role of executive director of strategy and compliance. Most recently he was interim director of strategy and planning, and previously director of professional policy at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) where he was responsible for implementing recommendations from the Levitt inquiry and Bichard review regarding governance and strategy. Earlier in his career he was a manager, policy and strategy, at ICAEW.

K3 Capital Group has appointed financial services litigation and regulatory expert, Lynsey Gregory as general counsel. She will join the K3 leadership team, with a group-wide remit to provide legal leadership and advice to K3 and its global subsidiaries with a particular focus on the Quantuma group of companies. Gregory has over 20 years of experience in both private practice and in-house legal roles in the UK and the Middle East with a focus on litigation, regulatory, conduct and compliance matters. Previously she was regional head of litigation and regulatory enforcement with HSBC Bank Middle East Ltd.