This week's industry careers update

Heathrow Airport appoints director of treasury and corporate finance

London’s Heathrow terminal has appointed Sally Ding as its new director of treasury and finance.

Ding is an experienced treasurer and has served across various treasury sectors such as funding, investor relations, risk management, corporate finance, systems and treasury operations.

She joined Heathrow in 2006 and since then, she has operated within the company in a leading role and helped shape Heathrow’s capital structure and financing strategy.

Prior to joining Heathrow, Ding served in the investment banking sector in Hong Kong and in the transport and energy industry in countries such as Australia and China.

Heathrow CFO, Javier Echave, said: “Following a thorough internal and external search, I am delighted to appoint Sally Ding as our director of treasury and corporate finance. Her inclusive, resilient and energetic leadership style, complemented with excellent technical competence and impeccable transactional credentials, will be invaluable as we develop and execute our expansion financing plans.”

Everton FC appoints new head of risk

Liverpool-based football club Everton Football Club has announced that the club now has a new leadership team, including a new director of risk and governance.

Paul McNicholas will be taking up the role once he joins the group this month.

McNicholas spent more than a decade as a specialist in governance, risk management and internal audit for Deloitte, following which he joined Everton FC in 2016 as its head of risk and governance.

Speaking about the latest appointments, Everton FC CEO Professor Denise Barrett-Baxendale said: “As a Club, it is imperative that we move forward and grow – and I firmly believe this team will give us the opportunity to do that. This is a very experienced, very committed and very able team – a group of people that will be working hard each and every day to make sure we deliver on our Club standard of ‘nothing but the best is good enough”.

Cinnober appoints Peter Lenardos as group CFO

Peter Lenardos has been promoted to group CFO for the Cinnober Group as current CFO, Ninni Pramdell, is stepping down to pursue other opportunities.

Lenardos has extensive experience in the financial sector as both an investment banker and ranked research analyst, with an international network in the institutional investment community, and among global market infrastructure and asset management companies.

He has proven transaction, capital raising, valuation and forecasting capabilities.

Since April this year, Lenardos has been a senior financial advisor to Cinnober, and previously held the position as a managing director in the Royal Bank of Canada’s (RBC) London office.

At RBC, he established the global market infrastructure and European diversified financials franchises, and brings strong C-suite relationships across the exchange and asset management sectors to Cinnober.

Lenardos will be based in both Cinnober’s London and Stockholm offices.

MarketInvoice appoints CTO 

Fintech start-up MarketInvoice has appointed Rija Javed as its chief technology officer (CTO) as the company looks to invest heavily into its technology.

Javed joins from Wealthfront, a leading Silicon Valley based start-up.

She becomes one of the first female CTOs at a fintech in the UK. In the role, Rija will be responsible for the engineering, data science, product and design teams.

Javed said: “Given the exciting roadmap ahead, our immediate focus is to scale up and continue improving our clients’ experience by investing in our team and technology. Thus, as people are the most important aspect of any venture, we’re looking to expand our team, especially in engineering.”

On becoming one of the first female CTOs in the UK, Javed remarked: “Diversity for me isn’t just about gender, although we certainly need more women in tech, but ensuring we have diversity in all areas like race, culture, religious/spiritual beliefs, and socio-economic background.”

Crown Agents Bank hires David Pitts as senior advisor

David Pitts has joined Crown Agents Bank’s International Development Organisations (IDO) team as senior advisor.

Pitts was a senior relationship banker in Africa for the past 20 years. Joining from Ecobank, Pitts’ previously worked with international donors, development finance institutions (DFIs), the United Nations and major NGOs.

He also has a passion for African development, evidenced by his lead roles in multiple capacity-building partnerships with the likes of the Global Fund.

Pitts said:“The bank has strong local relationships in developing countries, meaning we are able to offer liquidity and competitive foreign exchange prices in traditionally illiquid markets. This allows our clients to overcome payment barriers and, importantly, to navigate risk effectively.”