MHA MacIntyre Hudson has appointed partner Tariq Husain as head of global business services, an offer providing essential back office services to firms operating in more than one country. Global Business Services will provide a coordinated outsourced solution for accounting functions such as bookkeeping, financial/management accounts, tax compliance, HR & payroll as well as corporate secretarial. Before joining the firm, Husain spent two years as global head of Outsourced Business Services, an independent administrative and fiduciary services provider. MHA MacIntyre Hudson is part of Baker Tilly International.

Accountancy firm Moore Thompson has hired Robert Blair as manager for its offices in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. Blair joins the firm having spent nearly two decades working for various firms in and around Cambridge, including a short time with Deloitte. He is an ACCA fellow and specialises in owner managed businesses across a range of sectors, including manufacturing, agriculture and construction.

Mitchells Chartered Accountants, based in Derbyshire, has made five appointments. Chartered accountant and Sheffield University graduate Emily Coy strengthens the firm’s corporate team. She joins from a local accountancy firm and has experience in a variety of business sectors. Vaughan Carr also joins the firms as an AAT accredited senior accountant. Connie Shaw joins as an AAT apprentice and Mathew Nutt as a tax and employer solutions apprentice. Completing the appointment line-up is Abigail Chadburn, who joins from Sheffield Hallam University on a 12-month undergraduate placement in the corporate services team.

International law firm Ashurst has hired Jan Gooze-Zijl as chief financial and operations officer and will join the firm in February 2017. He joins from multichannel broadcaster UKTV where he is chief financial and operations officer, responsible for all financial decision-making and technical and operational aspects of the organisation. Prior to his current role he was at Virgin Media Group.

Matthew Kelly joins BCA Marketplace plc as finance director – group, with responsibility for internal and external financial reporting, treasury, taxation matters, internal audit and risk. He joins BCA from Smith & Nephew where he most recently held the role of VP finance operations, having previously worked for Taylor Wimpey and Deloitte.  He will report to Tim Lampert, chief financial officer.

The Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) has hired Chris Irons as regional account manager for the North East and Scotland. He will be based in Darlington and joins a team of eight regional account managers situated throughout the UK. He joins AAT from Nordic Focus Training Group, a national training provider delivering recruitment solutions to employers, where he worked for the past three years as head of sales and significantly exceeded his revenue target for the 2015-16 financial year.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has confirmed that chief accountant James Schnurr is to retire from the agency after two years in post. Schnurr will be replaced by Wesley R Bricker, who has been deputy chief accountant at the US regulator since July 2016. Bricker joined the SEC in 2015 from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, where he was a partner responsible for audit engagements in the banking, capital markets, financial technology and investment management sectors.