New insolvency partner joins Lester Aldridge

New Partner Rebecca Walker has joined Lester Aldridge’s Restructuring and Insolvency Team.

She has more than 12 years’ experience, working with various top city and regional practices.

Rebecca has also completed a six month secondment to a hedge fund and a short secondment to a German law firm.

Her work at Lester Aldridge will range from handling complex restructuring and insolvencies, often involving an international or regulatory element, as well as providing strategic advice to companies and their directors in financial difficulty and insolvency practitioner clients.

Melia Hirst, Partner in the Restructuring and Insolvency team, said: “Nick Keitley [fellow Partner] and I are delighted to welcome Rebecca into our growing team, now extending our geographical reach in London, Surrey, Thames Valley and Sussex.

“Especially so at a time when we are seeing an upturn in clients and distressed businesses requiring our specialist assistance.

“Rebecca brings a whole wealth of experience to complement our own.

“We are excited to have her on board.”

Matthew Barrow, Managing Partner at the Bournemouth-based law firm, pictured left, said: “We are pleased to welcome Rebecca to the firm.

“During a time of uncertainty, Rebecca’s arrival is a positive step for growing the firm’s Restructuring and Insolvency team.”

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Hendy Group welcomes Richard to 25 Year Club

Hendy has honoured long-serving colleagues with eight new admissions to the prestigious 25 Year Club which recognises the growing number of loyal employees within the company.

The new entrants include Richard Reed, who joined the company in Bournemouth, and Poole service technician Simon Lane.

Paul Hendy, Chief Executive, said there were now 122 members of the 25 Year Club and he felt honoured that so many people choose to stay with Hendy.

He added: “I’m delighted to welcome the eight new members to the 25 Year Club and, this year in particular, I’d like to thank the colleagues for their dedication and loyalty to Hendy Group.

“We pride ourselves on having colleagues of the highest calibre who share our visions.

“Having so many people who have worked with us for so many years demonstrates support in our approach to business.”

Richard Reed, pictured right with Paul Hendy, joined the company as General Sales Manager in Bournemouth.

His career has focused on new and used cars with roles including Group Buyer and, more recently, Group Used Car Sales Manager.

He said the variety of roles and opportunities within the group had created a great career in a company he loves.

Good training and benefits, personal development prospects and the fact it is family-run are some of the factors the business believes drive its high colleague retention.

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Neil celebrates tenth ‘workiversary’ at Innovate

Project engineer Neil Deedman has marked his tenth ‘workiversary’ with Innovate Ltd.

The Bournemouth-based company provides cloud hosting, cloud solutions and remote access,

David Pape, Director, said: “Neil is a much respected and well liked member of our team and the place would just not be the same without him.

“He has worked on virtually all of the major cloud migration programs for all our largest customers and has become well known and respected by them as a result.

“He has also been integral in building the high performance cloud server arrays that power Innovate’s cloud platform.”

Neil, pictured left, said: “I started as a support engineer when Innovate was an IT Support Company.

“However, we soon started the cloud platform development project and, as I had past experience with data centres, I very quickly began working on the development of what would become our Cloud9 platform.

“Since then, because of my knowledge of the construct behind our platform, I have become the guy who implements changes and improvements to our data centres, as well as working on the larger customer migration projects.

“As a result, I must have been to Manchester – the site of our first and largest data centre – over 30 times in my 10 years.

“This has often seen me and Dave working late nights together, but at either end of the country; me making the changes to the physical infrastructure while Dave and the team are doing the changes to our systems.

“There is a running joke that every time I go to Manchester, it always seems to snow!

“As a result I am always sending the team pictures of ‘snow in Manchester’ as opposed to sunny Bournemouth.

“However, on one occasion I went up there in summer, so to make up for the lack of snow, my colleague and I went to the Manchester indoor ski centre and took a couple of pictures there.

“We all enjoy each other’s company and regularly socialise together.

“It says something about the closeness of the team that David (pictured right) acted as my chauffeur at my wedding last year.

“We are very close in that respect.”

David added: “As well as being a good friend, Neil is indeed a valuable member of our team.

“Here’s to the next ten years!”