This week's London appointments

Tom Smallbone, Godwin Developments

Godwin Developments has announced the appointment of its new land manager, Tom Smallbone.

Tom has joined the developer after injury meant he had to retire from a career as a professional rugby player.

Having previously held the position of project manager for TowerEight -working on hotel and student accommodation schemes -Tom brings a wealth of experience with him to the team.

Tom commented: “Prior to my official move into the property industry, I spent seven years playing rugby professionally, some of my career highlights included playing for London Irish in the Premiership, European competition and London Scottish in the Championship.

“I am very excited to join the Godwin Developments team, one of the main reasons I was so interested in the company was due to its vast experience and portfolio in the build-to-rent (BTR) and roadside retail sectors.

“I am interested in working within both industries, I am looking forward to working with such a great team and getting my teeth into some fantastic developments.”

Becky McOwen-Banks, VaynerMedia London

VaynerMedia London has announced that Becky McOwen-Banks will be joining the agency as its first executive creative director.

McOwen-Banks joins from FCB Inferno, where she was creative director for over five years.

Sarah Baumann, Managing Director of VaynerMedia London, commented: “Becky joining VaynerMedia London at this point in our journey is incredibly exciting.”

“Her approach to creativity and leadership play well into VaynerMedia’s core values.

“She has a strong focus on diversity, an obsession with exploring new communication and business models built for the now, and finds innovative ways to disrupt the old order and understand audiences – she is the final piece we need to complete our leadership team in London.

“Becky has a strong creative reputation, great global experience, knowledge of the market and is all-round a fantastic person. She is the perfect fit for our culture and we can’t wait to hit the ground running!”

Becky added: “I am thrilled to take the next step to executive creative director as part such an innovative agency.

“It was clear from our first conversations that Sarah and the leadership team echo my excitement and dedication to creating communications for today, and are willing to explore how we can do that.

“It is the perfect opportunity for me to bring together my learnings from my MBA, my curiosity for innovation, and my personal ongoing commitment to changing advertising for the better ­- to be an exciting and open industry for all.”

Lauren Thiede-Palmer, Ben Gurney, Thomas Upton and Arslan Iqbal, Turley

Planning and development consultancy Turley has announced four new appointments.

Lauren Thiede-Palmer joins as planner in the consultancy’s London team.

Having previously worked at DP9 Planning Consultancy, she brings over four years’ experience in advising clients on a diverse range of commercial and residential schemes in central London.

Ben Gurney is joining the firm as Senior Consultant in the landscape, townscape and VIA team, coming from environmental consultancy LUC.

Thomas Upton and Arslan Iqbal have also joined the development viability team as senior surveyor and assistant planning and development surveyor respectively. Thomas joins from Carter Jonas, with more than six years’ experience providing development consultancy and agency advice to private and public sector clients across central London and the South East. Arslan joins from Capita and has experience of providing commercial property advice on a range of property matters.

Speaking about the growth of the team, Roger Mascall, head of London, said: “It’s been a fantastic start to the year for us with our teams already working on lots of exciting projects.

“We continue to see growth in larger and more complex development proposals across the region and the expansion of our services will help us meet demand.

“I’m pleased to welcome Lauren, Ben, Thomas and Arslan and look forward to working with them.”

Chris Bell, mthree

Tech talent specialist, mthree, has appointed Chris Bell as head of sales.

Chris has 34 years’ experience in the talent, managed services and recruitment process outsourcing industries, with more than 20 of those spent in international sales roles in world-leading talent solutions organisations.

Most recently, Chris held the position of global sales director at professional services recruitment consultancy, Morgan McKinley.

In his newly created role at mthree, Chris will be drawing on his significant expertise to continue mthree’s recent impressive growth, with the business having been acquired at the beginning of 2020 by NYSE-listed multinational, John Wiley and Sons, in a £98m deal.

Chris said: “I am incredibly excited to be joining such a dynamic, rapidly growing business with such enormous opportunities for scale. However, crucially, I am most looking forward to having the chance to do something really worthwhile.

“mthree’s model democratises the recruitment process, helping people to gain greater access to fantastic careers that may otherwise have seemed unachievable to them, enabling them to improve their lives, and this is a purpose that I truly believe in.”

Joonas Kukkonen and Marc Munier, Busuu

Busuu, a language-learning platform, has announced the appointment of Joonas Kukkonen as chief technology officer (CTO) and Marc Munier as chief commercial officer (CCO).

Joonas was recently an engineering lead at Spotify, where he was in charge of building the company’s podcast mobile experience. He has over 14 years of experience in mobile app engineering, in addition to engineering management roles.

In his new role as CTO at Busuu, Joonas will oversee the company’s engineering teams in London and Madrid, helping the company continue to transform the way people learn languages through technology.

Joonas commented: “Language learning is still in its first steps to becoming digitalised and has only seen the first promises of what impact personalised learning can have.”

“Busuu has started on this journey by enhancing lessons through the use of machine learning technology and is in a position to change how we learn languages.”

Marc was previously chief commercial officer at DevicePilot. Throughout his career, he has helped businesses achieve ambitious growth targets and expand into new markets globally. At Busuu, he will be responsible for scaling the company’s corporate language training offering, Busuu for Business.

Marc said: “Busuu has ambitious plans to dominate the corporate language training sector and I’m incredibly excited to help it realise its growth potential in the market.”

“There are plenty of great things about Busuu that attracted me to the company, from its experienced team and company culture to its clear objectives and the fact that it scaled fast out of its own cash flow – which is quite a rare find in the startup world!”

Jasan Fitzpatrick, Legal & General Capital

Legal & General Capital (LGC) has announced that Jasan Fitzpatrick has been appointed managing director of principal investment.

Jasan has been employed by LGC since July 2018, when he joined from CALA Group.

With over 20 years’ experience across the property and investment sectors, Jasan was general counsel and company secretary at Premium Credit Limited, a finance business owned by the private equity house Cinven, and general counsel and company secretary at Northern Rock, prior to his role at CALA Group.

Jasan said: ’The VC ecosystem is growing strongly in the UK. Forming an increasingly important part of the UK economy, start-ups and scale-ups continue to transform entire industries, generating strong returns and revolutionising the way we live, work and play.

“Legal & General has committed capital to continue to support these businesses through existing Venture Capital managers.

“We also continue to see compelling opportunities to invest in the Build to Rent and Affordable Housing sectors.’

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