This week's London appointments

Welcome to your latest roundup of appointments from across the UK’s capital.

John Owen, Matthews & Goodman

The commercial property consultancy has recruited John Owen as the firm’s head of its national building consultancy team. He has also been invited to join the proprietary partnership as a member of the LLP.

Owen, who resides in Kings Hill, has over 15 years of experience in senior building surveying roles at GL Hearn and Capita Real Estate Advisory.

He comes to Matthews & Goodman with a fantastic reputation for building successful and highly profitable teams.

James Routledge, member and head of the investment team, said: “John’s extensive multi-sector experience, proven business winning culture and highly personable management style is exactly what we need.

“John knows what it takes to build strong and successful multi-disciplinary teams, win new clients and grow/retain existing ones therefore his appointment is a significant milestone in the plan for the future of our firm.”

Prior to GL Hearn, John worked at companies such as Eddison’s Commercial, CNP and Dearle & Henderson.

Andy Clarke, Spoon Guru

Spoon Guru, a smart food search engine for people with multiple or complex dietary preferences, has appointed Andy Clarke as chairman, with immediate effect.

Andy Clarke, the former chief executive and president of Asda brings over 25 years of experience of driving performance improvement in multi brand international businesses.

His sector experience includes food, fashion and general merchandise in both property intensive, multi-channel and online retailers. Andy will focus on building relationships for Spoon Guru internationally with suppliers and retailers in the grocery business.

Markus Stripf, CEO and co-founder of Spoon Guru, said: “As a service provider we enable retailers to keep pace with increasingly complex consumer needs & preferences. Retailers need to be able to respond to consumer demand by offering truly unique retail experiences.

“The good news is that now they can! We are thrilled to be joining forces with Andy to promote and roll out our capabilities to partners around the world”.

Spoon Guru’s technology enables the consumer to create their dietary profile, using multiple choices from over 170 different food attributes and more than 24 different diets. The technology then uses AI, machine learning and category expertise to find suitable products.

On his appointment, Andy Clarke added: “I am delighted to join such an innovative company, with a passion for facilitating customer tailored preferences. Spoon Guru’s personalised offering across multiple industry sectors is an indispensable navigation tool, whether you have an allergy, intolerance or have just chosen a specific lifestyle diet.”

Matthew Gretton, Trussle

Trussle, the UK’s first online mortgage broker, has appointed Matthew Gretton as vice president of engineering.

The new hire strengthens Trussle’s commitment aiming to lead the way on tech innovation in the mortgage sector.

Gretton brings valuable expertise and experience to the company, having spent over a decade in the financial technology sector. Before joining Trussle, Gretton was a senior engineering figure at peer-to-peer lending platform, Funding Circle.

Matthew Gretton said: “Trussle has a unique opportunity to build significant life-long relationships with its customers, enabled by the transparent and personalised use of automation.

“The complex regulatory requirements and wider implications of using automation to make important life decisions make this is an exciting challenge. Trussle is on the forefront of tackling these issues and I’m excited to be a part of the journey.”

In his new role, Gretton will report directly into the CEO and lead the firm’s efforts towards its product vision of instant mortgage approvals and lifetime mortgage monitoring. He will also lead Trussle’s rapidly growing engineering team.

Richard Hughes, Moore Blatch

Moore Blatch has announced the appointment of commercial property expert, Richard Hughes, as partner.

Hughes, who is based in the firm’s London office, specialises in commercial property and land development. He acts on a wide range of commercial property transactions, including property investment, corporate occupier and retail property work.

Richard joins from Boodle Hatfield, where he spent over seven years, after training and initially practising at international law firm Mayer Brown.

Ed Whittington, managing partner at Moore Blatch, said: “Richard joins at a time of growth for Moore Blatch and brings experience and specialist knowledge that will complement and further strengthen the commercial property team.”

Richard Hughes, partner, Moore Blatch said: “I am delighted to join such a highly respected law firm, especially at this exciting time of growth across the business. I look forward to working with my new colleagues as we build on the firm’s recent successes.”

Peter Hajittofi, coralbay.tv

Cloud playout and workflow specialist, coralbay.tv, has announced the appointment of Peter Hajittofi as CEO. Former CEO, Julian Hepworth, has taken the role of CTO and Rob Di Paolo moves into the role of chief software architect.

Peter Hajittofi has a proven track record in building businesses, having formerly co-founded Pebble Beach Systems with Julian Hepworth and former colleague Ian Cockett. Under his leadership Pebble Beach Systems developed award winning playout products and grew to become a world leader in automation solutions.

Julian Hepworth, CTO, said: “I worked with Peter for over 16 years at Pebble Beach Systems and before then at Louth and Logica. He is extremely knowledgeable about the broadcast industry and is very well connected.

“Peter brings a combination of industry knowledge, management skills and business contacts which will be key in helping to realise the vision of coralbay.tv.”

Hajittofi added: “Having worked with Julian, Rob and Gavin at Pebble Beach Systems on traditional automation and video products, I’m genuinely excited to be joining a visionary new company that will create groundbreaking cloud based solutions from the ground up.”

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