PwC has promoted two new equity partners and four directors in its corporate finance deals team.  Jon Shelley has been made an equity partner in the firm’s Aberdeen centre of excellence for oil and gas.  Gareth Marshall and Charlotte Tracy are named as directors in PwC’s northern practice. Within the corporate finance infrastructure and government team, Charles Johnson-Ferguson has been made an equity partner, with Michael Meredith from the Birmingham office and Andrew Osborn in the Leeds team promoted to director.

The London Pensions Fund Authority, which has recently signed a £10bn partnership with Lancashire County Pension Fund, has announced that Sir Merrick Cockell is to take over as acting chairman. He was previously deputy chairman and is also chairman of the UK Municipal Bonds Agency and the Crossrail2 Growth Commission.

Vistra, which provides corporate, trust and fund administration services, has announced its expanded operations in the Cayman Islands will be headed up by a Cayman resident managing director, Clive Gibbons. The company says the move is in response to the growing demand for Cayman Islands structures. Gibbons has previously worked within the banking, trust and corporate services sector in Guernsey, the British Virgin Islands and London, before relocating to Cayman in 2013.

The Fish Partnership has recruited Jeff Higgins as a tax manager, after 16 years at another accountancy practice, while  Chris Clarke joins the High Wycombe-based firm as a trainee accountant.

KPMG has appointed Rob Clayton as a new partner to its 25-strong UK insurance tax team.  Most recently he was group tax director at Friends Life and, prior to that, group tax director at RSA. His appointment marks a return to the firm as he was with KPMG from October 1998 to September 2001 after training with the Inland Revenue.

Deloitte has named senior partner, James O’Riordan, as leader of its financial services practice. Also appointed to the firm’s financial services executive group are David Myers, David Rush and Neil Tomlinson, as respective heads of capital markets, insurance and banking. Mark Ward continues his role as investment management leader. O’Riordan was previously Deloitte UK’s head of insurance and the co-head of the firm’s EMEA insurance practice.

ICAEW has appointed Jill May and Michael Stewart as the first non-chartered accountants to join its board in a move the institute says is designed to broaden its diversity of thinking and to bring expertise and experience not currently represented on the board. May has spent much of her career in investment banking, with 13 years in M&A at SG Warburg & Co and over 10 years in strategic functions at UBS. She is a non-executive director and panel member of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and a member of the complaints committee of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO).  Stewart is president and CEO of Edelman’s Europe and CIS region and is also a member of Edelman’s global executive committee, having previously been a partner and global director of communications and marketing for McKinsey and Company.