Member Article

Ardent Management appoints new group MD

A leading national surveying and consents management consultancy has appointed a new group managing director to drive forward the company’s growth – and it marks a return to his roots.

Jon Stott has re-joined Ardent Management, which has offices in London, Birmingham, Warrington, Leeds, Glasgow and Dublin – the company where he started his career in 2004.

Stott left the business in 2013 to become managing director at Hamer Associates and oversaw the company’s growth which led to a buy-out from Gateley in 2016. During that period, he also rose to be chair of industry body – the Compulsory Purchase Association (CPA).

Ardent has grown dramatically since 2013 and the appointment of Stott is intended to help the business achieve further growth after adding new offices and services. He said: “When I originally joined the business, I was the sixth person to join the company and when I left nine years ago, we were up to 20.

“I’ve been watching the business progress and grow as it has added new service lines and has attracted some of the top talent in the industry, which means we are now up to more than 120 people.

“There are market-leading specialists here at Ardent and the business has expanded its geographical footprint out of London and into Birmingham, the north, Scotland and Ireland.

“I’m hugely excited by the opportunity to help the business to achieve its ambitious growth plans.” Ardent offers a range of services within the property industry, including acting for developers and local authorities to assemble land – often including compulsory purchase – and provide consent management consultancy services to enable major projects.

The company specialises in the transport, renewables, town centre regeneration and utilities sectors. Stott added: “Much of what we do is around land assembly for major projects and quite often that can be using compulsory purchase powers in the background using specialists in our compensation, consents and land referencing teams. More recently we have also added project management and land surveying & geomatics to our range of services, with all of those teams growing particularly quickly due to client demand.

“We’ve got a strong presence across the country and, whilst guiding clients through stringent rules and statutory consenting regimes, we aim to be innovative in the solutions we offer to the challenges our clients face. “When you add all of that together, it gives us a really strong set of skills and great growth potential for the future.”

Richard Caten, chief executive of Ardent, welcomed Stott back to the business. He said: “We are very pleased to have Jon back on board as our group managing director. “He was part of the early phase of Ardent’s story back in 2004 and it’s great to have him back with the business as we aim to grow significantly over the coming years.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Matt Joyce .