Cooper Parry has strengthened its northern leadership team with the appointment of Chulanga Jayawardana as partner to lead transaction services from the Leeds hub and Paul Hudson as audit partner based in Manchester. Both will work with clients across the northern patch and across the UK with a focus on mid market businesses. Jayawardana, known as CJ, brings more than 20 years of experience in transaction advisory, M&A and due diligence, advising on complex buy side and sell side deals, cross border transactions, and IPOs. He joins from KPMG where he was a director, deal advisory. Private equity specialist Hudson will lead the firm’s private equity audit offer across the North and brings more than 14 years of experience advising corporates and mid-sized businesses. Previously Hudson was a director at PwC where he trained.

S&W has appointed Julie Latta as a partner in its advisory consulting team in London. She will play a pivotal role in strengthening consulting capabilities and brings more than three decades of experience in procurement, supply chain transformation and cost efficiency improvement across the private sector. She has held senior leadership roles across major consumer, hospitality, retail and global brands including Burberry, M&S and Hilton. Previously Latta was a director at Siemens Advanta Consulting (formerly Vendigital). Pictured: Julia Latta

PKF Littlejohn Advisory has promoted Oliver Collinge and Stratford Hamilton to partner. Leeds based Collinge handles all aspects of restructuring, facilitating insolvent sales, and conducting complex asset recovery investigations involving fraud or misfeasance. He is an ACCA chartered accountant and licensed insolvency practitioner. Hamilton heads up the contentious insolvency team and has handled a number of high profile corporate and bankruptcy cases for data protection and digital services regulators.

Xeinadin has promoted James Bruce, Stephanie Baker and Richard Landsberg to partner in a series of promotions across the north west. Manchester based Bruce has significant experience advising owner-managed businesses across the construction and property sectors. Baker, an audit responsible individual (ARI) based in Chester, joined the firm as a graduate trainee 12 years ago and advises across audit, accounts, tax, payroll and advisory. Landsberg has strong experience in digital systems and operations, and has helped streamline processes to improve consistency across teams. Nina Lasota-Long and Paul Mulhearn have been promoted to director based in Bolton and Liverpool respectively.

RPGCC has appointed Grant Lee as a partner, strengthening the audit and assurance capability at the firm. He brings more than 15 years of audit and assurance experience for publicly listed groups, real estate, and private equity portfolio companies, supporting clients operating in complex environments, including in the real estate and private equity sectors. He joins from Menzies where he was a partner, and prior a partner at Gerald Edelman having originally trained at PwC.

Forvis Mazars has promoted Laura Salter to partner in the financial planning team, based in the Birmingham office. Salter will continue to head up the financial planning team in the Midlands, which she has led since 2018, and in her new role will focus on developing talent and building on the firm’s reputation in Birmingham’s business community. She also plays a pivotal role in bringing the firm’s Independent Women offering to clients, providing personalised, forward-thinking financial strategies that empower women to achieve their goals and secure their financial wellbeing. Salter originally joined the firm in 2013 as a graduate trainee.

Bishop Fleming has appointed James Maynell as a transaction support partner in Birmingham. He brings over two decades of wide-ranging, high-level commercial experience as a due diligence specialist and his focus will be on buy-side and sell-side due diligence. He joins the firm from Ballards LLP where he was a partner, and previously spent 12 years at EY in operational transaction services.

Wbg has promoted Jenna Fair to associate director at the Scottish based firm. Fair has been with the firm for over a decade and specialises in the charity sector, managing a portfolio of audit exempt charity clients. She leads the Independent Examinations offering for smaller charities and not-for-profit organisations.

Mercer & Hole has appointed Will Da Costa as insolvency investigations and forensics manager in the restructuring and insolvency team based in the London office. Da Costa has more than 10 years of experience in forensic accounting, financial investigations, and expert witness support, and will work with a broad client base, including private individuals, shipping and media companies, banks, governments and the oil, gas, and mining sectors. Previously he was a forensic director at K2 Integrity, where he focused on complex financial investigations.

Speedy Hire has appointed Judith Cottrell to the board as chief financial officer with effect from 1 July. Current CFO Paul Rayner is set to retire this year after a transition handover period. Chartered accountant Cottrell has extensive experience in senior financial and operational roles, most recently as CFO of Ricardo and previously as the group finance director for RPS Group. She originally trained at KPMG, where she spent five years at the firm.

Associated British Foods has appointed Joana Edwards as group chief financial officer with immediate effect, stepping up from her role as group interim finance director. She has over 30 years of international finance experience with particular expertise in FMCG and consumer-facing industries, including retail. Edwards has a focus on disciplined capital allocation and shareholder value creation, combined with strong technical capability across integrated reporting, controls and financial planning. Before joining ABF, she was group financial controller at L'Oréal.

Gamma Communications has appointed Damien Maltarp as chief financial officer and board director, taking over from Bill Castell, who will be leaving the group on 31 March to take up an executive role at a private equity backed business. ICAEW chartered accountant Maltarp brings significant telecoms and capital markets expertise with more than 15 years’ senior leadership experience across a broad range of financial roles. He is currently group financial controller for London Stock Exchange Group and serves as a non-executive director of The Mercantile Investment Trust plc, where he is also audit committee chair. He originally trained at Arthur Andersen.

Silverfin has appointed An Maes as CEO at the cloud-first accountancy SaaS platform. She will lead global expansion and the diversification of the platform-as-a-service offering to accounting firms and software partners globally. Maes most recently served as general manager international, where she led expansion of the business into several markets, including the UK, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Denmark, from its original Belgium base. She joined Silverfin in 2019 after more than seven years at EY as an accountant.  

International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) has appointed Emily Fitts as chair of the Monitoring Group, responsible for advancing the public interest by supporting the governance and oversight of the international audit, assurance, and ethics standard-setting system. Fitts is deputy chief accountant – international at the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and until January this year was a partner and deputy chief auditor at Deloitte in Washington DC.