People: FD leaves French Connection

• Creaseys, the Tunbridge Wells-based firm, has announced the appointment of a new partner. The appointment of Elizabeth Robertson is the company’s first internal promotion to the position of partner since 1996 and is effective from 2 January. Robertson will join 10 other partners at the 100-strong accountancy and tax practice. She joined Creaseys in March last year from Deloitte & Touche, where she had worked for 15 years, most recently as senior tax manager.

• French Connection Group has announced that Nick Mather, who has been with the company for nine years, is resigning as finance director to pursue other business interests. Roy Naismith joined the company and the board as finance director on 2 January. Naismith joins from his position as financial director for Starbucks Coffee Company UK where he has gained extensive retail and consumer experience. Prior to that he worked as Capital Radio Group head of finance.

• Watford firm Howard Wilson has appointed Campbell Wilson as a partner. The firm, which was established by Gary Howard in December 1999, specialises in charity accounting and business start-ups. Wilson, who is 27 and is both ACA and ATII qualified, joins the firm from the tax department of PricewaterhouseCoopers. Wilson will head up the practice’s tax services as well as being involved in audit and accounting services. Howard and Wilson have worked in partnership before, completing both the London and Edinburgh Marathons in 1999.

• KPMG has announced the appointment of five new partners to its financial services insurance unit. Karen Orr, Mike Sobers, Hitesh Patel, Graham Seymour and Robert Lewis between them have expertise in insurance accounting, IT risk and control management, life assurance products and retail financial services. Orr works in the firm’s financial sector group and joined KPMG in 1989. Since then she has worked out of Leeds, London and Edinburgh offices serving clients in the retail financial sector. Sobers has worked at KPMG since 1995, focusing on IT risk and control management in the financial services sector. Sobers previously worked for Zurich Financial Services and Liverpool Friendly Society. Hitesh is head of insurance technical and regulatory services in London. He is a member of KPMG’s European accounting and regulatory network and is responsible for providing insurance accounting and regulatory advice to clients and staff. Seymour trained as an inspector of taxes with the Inland Revenue, specialising in the taxation of life offices, before joining KPMG in 1997. He is the national partner leading KPMG’s UK insurance tax market group. Lewis joined the company in 1987.

He has specialised in working for the insurance industry for the last ten years, providing services including audit and accounting advice and assistance on corporate transactions.

• MacIntyre Strater International (MSI), the multi-disciplinary network of accountants and lawyers has appointed David Riley to its board of directors. Riley is a partner in the London-based accounting firm, haysmacintyre, which resulted from the merger of MSI member, MacIntyre & Co, with Hays Allan as of 1 January this year. haysmacintyre is now the London-based accounting member of MSI. Riley brings a wealth of experience to the position, having previously been on the management board of a similar international network, in which his previous firm was a member.

• BKL Green is to join the UK’s only publicly quoted accountancy firm, Tenon Group. Ian Buckley, Tenon Group chairman, said its role within the group will be as the practice responsible for the southern region. Announcing the decision, BKL Weeks Green’s senior partner Tim Jobling said he believed the move was an essential step in today’s business environment and he assured clients that there would be few changes to the structure of the existing firm. From the beginning of this year, the firm will practice as BKL Tenon for non-audit work and BKL Blueprint for audit work. With 26 partners and more than 250 staff, BKL Weeks Green is the third and biggest firm to join Tenon.

• Andrew Gosling, a partner with accountants Ernst & Young, is to join the Yorkshire Building Society as finance director in April. Gosling succeeds Andrew Pearce who retires as the building society’s FD at the end of April.

Pearce said: ‘I have enjoyed my period as finance director enormously. Back in 1995, when I joined, many people were forecasting the demise of the sector and I am delighted that I have been able to contribute over a five-year period when the society’s asset size and membership levels have grown so dramatically.’ Gosling said: ‘I am delighted by the opportunity to contribute to the continuing success of a first-class organisation.’

Send people news to Lois Fettis by e-mail at: [email protected].