Anderson Anderson & Brown makes key Edinburgh partner hire

Anderson Anderson & Brown LLP (AAB), the chartered accountancy and business advisory firm, has taken on a top public sector audit specialist as a partner.

Andy Shaw will lead the AAB public sector and not-for-profit audit business across Scotland.

Andy Shaw will be based in the firm’s Edinburgh office and lead AAB’s public sector and not-for-profit audit business across Scotland. He will also work closely with the AAB Consulting team on projects with public sector and higher education clients.

The firm said Shaw had a strong track record of leading external audits for several organisations in the public sector, as well as working with local authorities, central government bodies, social housing groups, higher education institutions and charities.

AAB chief executive Graeme Allan said: “We are thrilled to welcome Andy to the firm. Although he joins us at a time when the market is changing, I have no doubt that he will play a key and valued role in our public sector team.”

The firm has offices in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and London.

Meanwhile, in recently announced hires elsewhere in Scotland’s business world, Shepherd and Wedderburn LLP has promoted two of its lawyers to partner and four to legal director, effective 1 May.

The newly assumed partners are construction law specialist Lauren Thomson and corporate finance specialist John Morrison, both of whom have been with the firm since traineeship.

In this latest promotion round, four senior Shepherd and Wedderburn lawyers are also promoted to the post of legal director. They are Alison Rochester, Lucy Hall, Neil Cowan and Gavin Charlton.

Shepherd and Wedderburn managing partner Andrew Blain said: “These well-deserved promotions recognise our lawyers’ specialist expertise, their knowledge and understanding of the sectors in which they operate, and their ongoing commitment to delivering client service of the highest quality. We congratulate them on their achievement, and wish them every success as they embark on the next stage of their careers at Shepherd and Wedderburn.”

Orbital Marine Power, the developer of floating tidal stream turbines, has appointed Oliver Wragg as its commercial director. Before joining Orbital, Oliver was the commercial director at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) for over six years where he oversaw significant growth in activities supporting and delivering a multitude of industry initiatives and flagship projects.

Oliver has been an active board member of Ocean Energy Europe since 2010 and in 2012 was awarded the Lennard Senior Prize for Outstanding Individual Achievement in the field of marine energy.

Orbital CEO, Andrew Scott, said: “Oliver joining the team at Orbital is a huge boost for our commercial ambitions. He comes with an unrivalled marine energy network that stretches around the world and I’m certain he will play a pivotal role in building a valuable pipeline of projects for us to grow into in the years to come.”

LIFT-Invest, which has offices in Edinburgh, has welcomed industry heavyweight Stuart Niman to its eight-strong investment committee. Stuart has over 30 years’ experience in the financial sector.

In 1992 he was appointed head of fixed income at Halifax managing the interest rate risk in the treasury department. From 2002 to 2014 he was a managing director in BlackRock’s fixed income division where he led the sterling and euro liquidity funds portfolio management team as well as the short duration fixed income portfolios. He built assets under management to $95 billion.