EY partner Mark Clephan has been promoted to head of corporate finance for UK & Ireland. The Manchester-based M&A partner joined the firm in 2001 and was promoted to director in 2007. He has led EY’s corporate finance team in the north of England since 2014. He succeeds Fraser Greenshields, who was in the role for seven years and who will now return to a full-time client-facing corporate finance partner role. 

Clephan will work closely with Silvia Rindone, who was promoted to EY UK & Ireland managing partner for strategy and transactions last July.

BDO has promoted Jamie Austin (1), a London-based M&A partner specialising in life sciences, to head of global private equity. Having joined BDO as a partner in 2008 from EY, where he was a corporate finance director, he was a founder of BDO’s private equity team. He has been a member of the firm’s global private equity leadership team since its inception. He spent 12 years in EY’s M&A team and prior to that six years with Casson Beckman, where he trained as an ACA, before moving into its corporate finance team.

And in Bristol, BDO has recruited Phil Duma (2) as a transaction services partner. He previously spent 20 years with PwC in Bristol, initially training as an ACA in audit, before moving into transaction services, where he spent 17 years. He advises on mid-market deals across the South West and specialises in the financial services sector. During his time at PwC, he had a one-year secondment to the firm’s business recovery services team in 2009 and a secondment to HSBC’s corporate banking team.

In the South East, the firm has recruited Lucy Saunders (née Eldridge) (3) as a partner in its private client tax team, from Blick Rothenburg. She has 20 years’ experience of advising international high net worth individuals.

BDO is currently taking applications from A-level students for this year’s apprenticeship scheme – there are 87 advisory apprenticeships available, of which two are in M&A and nine in transaction services.

Jonathan Boyers (1), former UK head of corporate finance at KPMG, has joined Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) as managing director and head of corporate finance for the EMEA region. Based largely in Manchester, the corporate financier spent 35 years with KPMG and was a long-standing member of the board of ICAEW’s Corporate Finance Faculty. He left KPMG in January 2023 and spent a year on gardening leave. 

A&M is a US-headquartered global consultancy firm, which aims to grow its corporate finance offering – it currently has 80 corporate finance staff across the EMEA region, and the plan is to grow that further. Boyers is currently based in Dubai, but plans to return to Manchester, to grow the UK offering from there.

A&M has also announced its 2024 managing director promotions. In London, Paul Culham (2) and Cheng He (3) have been promoted in global transaction advisory; and Steve Green (4) and Tom Paterson (5) have been promoted in debt advisory. Culham joined A&M in 2019 from PwC, where he spent 12 years and trained as an ACA. Cheng He joined in 2021 from Deloitte, where he spent 10 years.

Other transaction advisory promotions across Europe have been Louis Darrieus and Samih Hajar in Paris; and Michal Kapela in Zurich. Cristiano Battelli in Milan and Felix Schweigger in Munich have been promoted to managing director in the private equity performance improvement team.

Azets has promoted David Ellis (1) to M&A partner. Based in the firm’s Maidstone office, he covers the South East of England. He came to the firm as a director in September 2020, with Azets’ acquisition of WK Corporate Finance. Prior to that, Ellis had joined WK in 2017 from Crowe Clark Whitehill, where he spent 11 years, initially training as an accountant in its audit team, before moving into corporate finance.

Azets partner Graham Dotchin (2) and manager Daniel Walker, both of whom have a background in data analytics, have moved across the firm to the corporate finance team, to provide data insight support. Dotchin is an ACA, and both he and Walker are based in the firm’s Newcastle office.

PwC has recruited Giorgio Libotte as a partner in its value creation and realisation team, which is part of the deals practice. He joins from Nextalia Private Equity Fund based in Milan, Italy, where he was founder, partner and member of the investment committee. 

Prior to setting up Nextalia, he had spent 16 years at McKinsey, where he was partner and head of its European private equity and corporate finance practices. Now based in London, he will advise on pre-deal value creation strategy through to post-deal value realisation and transformation.

Cortus Advisory Group has recruited Dan Booth (1) as a partner in its North West transaction services team based in Manchester, moving from KPMG, where he spent 13 years and trained as an ACA before becoming a transaction services director. His specialist sectors are business services, industrial services and logistics and supply chain. 

In Nottingham, the firm has recruited Brian Lee (2) to its transaction services team. He moves from Grant Thornton, where he was assistant manager in its transaction advisory services team. Originally from Hong Kong, he trained as an ACA with PwC in London, before moving to Grant Thornton at the start of 2022.

Cortus has also recruited Lizzie Meadowcroft (3) from KPMG as a partner to head the firm’s new synergy, integration and separation offering, based in Manchester. Previously she spent 20 years with KPMG, becoming a partner in 2022. 

Oliver Pawle has been appointed chairman of IMAP’s UK M&A business. Pawle was vice chairman of the investment banking division of UBS for 10 years, and senior adviser at Gleacher Shacklock. He is also the founder and chair of trustees for the Centre for Entrepreneurs, a charity supporting the training and development of young entrepreneurs.

Shaf Bheda (1) has been recruited by Dow Schofield Watts as a partner in the firm’s Midlands corporate finance team, which was set up in September last year. He has joined from Magma Corporate Finance, where he was head of corporate finance for six years, working on deals across the East and West Midlands. Prior to that he worked for RSM in the Midlands for six years, initially training as an ACA in audit before moving into corporate finance.

The first recruits to the new team were Harry Walker (2), Fahim Kassam (3) and Daniel Chouciño (4) from FRP Corporate Finance. They were joined by Lucy Fairclough (5) as associate director in November. The team is based in Leicester and Nottingham.

BKL has promoted Jethro Barnsley to assistant manager in corporate finance. He joined the firm in 2022 as a senior from PwC, where he qualified as an ACA.

Andy Tallon (1) has joined Interpath Advisory in Dublin as a managing director, moving from CBRE, where he spent 12 years and was an executive director. He started at CBRE working in debt and structured finance, having begun his career with Anglo Irish Bank, working on legal due diligence. He will be building out a debt advisory real estate service line at Interpath.

Simon Clarke (2) has also joined Interpath as associate director in the Dublin office’s valuations team. He was previously at Pitcher Partners in Melbourne, Australia. Before that, he worked for PKF Corporate Finance in Melbourne, having started his career with Deloitte in Dublin.