Crowe has appointed Dipesh Chhatralia as a partner in the social purpose and non profits team after joining the firm as a senior associate in 2011. He will continue to specialise in audit and advisory services for a broad range of clients in the sector. He also works on assurance assignments and donor grant audits, as well as advising on wider issues relating to financial management, governance, reserves, risk management and strategy.

Kingsley Napley has appointed Sophie Voelcker as a partner in its private client team. She will focus on advice to UK resident and domiciled clients about wealth structuring, estate planning and trusts, with a particular interest in any cross-border taxation and succession issues for clients with international assets or who have relocated abroad. Voelcker joins from private client boutique firm New Quadrant Partners where she has been a partner since 2017.

FTS Recovery has appointed Andrew Duncan as head of both its London office and secured lending and advisory services. He joins from Leonard Curtis where he spent 12 years as director in the London office of the specialist corporate recovery and insolvency practice. A licensed insolvency practitioner and chartered accountant (FCA), Duncan has worked around the world including Australia, Russia, Hong Kong and Thailand, across his more than 30-year career in corporate recovery. He will focus on increasing opportunities for the firm across the London area and leveraging wider internal service lines.

Evelyn Partners has appointed Lauren Glaister as a partner, specialising in managing investments for private clients based in the Leeds office. She joins from LGT Wealth Management’s discretionary fund management business where she spent three years as a senior investment manager. Prior to LGT and abrdn, Glaister worked for Tilney Investment Management (now Evelyn Partners) and Redmayne-Bentley. She is a trustee of Leeds Hospitals Charity and sits on their finance & performance and audit & risk committees.

Armstrong Watson has appointed Hayley Deeming as tax director to head up the firm’s corporate tax team in Newcastle. She is experienced in tax reliefs, including capital allowances and R&D tax relief, and advises on restructuring and corporate finance transactions. In her new role, Deeming will be responsible for project management for compliance and advisory service lines. Having qualified in 2006, training at PwC within corporate tax, she has a wealth of experience and has worked with a broad portfolio of clients, including large corporates and SMEs. Previously she was a senior tax manager at UNW for eight years.

BHP Accountants has promoted Neil Baldwin and Nicola Adams to director roles in the charities team. They are now both director responsible individuals, meaning they can sign off client audits. Both trained at the firm, having joined initially as school leavers. Adams joined in 2007 and became a chartered accountant in 2012. She is also a trustee of Derwent Rural Counselling Service. Baldwin

PKF Smith Cooper has appointed Ruth Morris as senior corporate tax manager at the Midlands-based accounting and advisory firm. She has over 30 years of experience in audit, accountancy and tax and has specialised in corporate tax since 1998. Morris will manage the corporate tax compliance process for clients. Previously she was a corporate tax manager at KPMG, after working inhouse as tax manager at Highways England. There have also been a number of internal promotions, including Julie Stringer, who has been promoted to audit director after 11 years at the firm for her fundamental role in driving the audit service offering forward. Josh Gurton has been promoted twice in six months, first to assistant manager and now to manager, in the PKF Corporate Finance team while Deniss Sipovics has been promoted to transaction services manager.

Lovewell Blake has promoted Sadie Nicholls and Sam Palmer to manager roles. Nicholls started at the firm in 2006 and works in the tax consultancy team, specialising in advisory work on international tax matters. Chartered tax advisor Palmer specialises in corporate tax consultancy, providing a range of advice and tax planning to businesses, with a particular emphasis on R&D tax relief claims. He originally joined in 2021 from GW Pharmaceuticals where he was a senior tax analyst.  

Sedulo Group has promoted Andy Nixon and Josh Perry to equity partner. Nixon is also national director of operations and tax and joined the firm a year ago after a career at Grant Thornton. Perry is head of R&D tax and has a background in consulting and business strategy, and has been with the firm nearly two years. Meanwhile Sam Perkin has joined the Leeds office as an audit director from Deloitte; he specialises in audit and assurance services across a number of sectors and has over 10 years’ experience working with UK and US listed companies.

FTSE listed mining giant BHP has appointed Vandita Pant as chief financial officer (CFO), effective 1 March 2024. She is currently chief commercial officer and joined BHP in 2016 and was previously group treasurer and head of Europe. Pant has more than 20 years’ experience in executive banking roles across India, Singapore, Japan and the UK, including with ABN Amro and Royal Bank of Scotland. David Lamont, current CFO, will remain with BHP until February 2025 as a senior executive officer in an advisory and projects capacity, reporting directly to the CEO.

AIM listed Novacyt, an international molecular diagnostics company, has appointed Steve Gibson as CFO and he will become a board director. He joined Novacyt in 2017 and has been group finance director since 2020. Prior to joining Novacyt, Gibson spent over 10 years in various finance departments at Hewlett-Packard and then Hewlett Packard Enterprise in positions of increasing seniority. He is a chartered management accountant (CIMA) and has more than 18 years of international commercial experience.

Globaltrans Investment plc has appointed Dmitry Frolov as CFO and has been with the group since 2012. His last role was as deputy CEO in the company’s subsidiary GTI Management with group-level responsibility for business development, M&A transactions and other areas of corporate finance. He has more than 15 years’ experience in finance in the transportation and logistics industry including five years as CFO of New Logistics, and originally trained at EY. Frolov took over from group CFO Alexander Shenets who has left the business after 15 years in the role and is now CFO at New Forwarding Co.