Knights, one of the UK’s fastest-growing regional legal and professional services businesses, is pleased to announce the appointments of Richard King, formerly a Non-Executive Director, as Chief Operating Officer and Jane Pateman as a Non-Executive Director of the Company, both with immediate effect.

Richard King brings a strong combination of skills and experience in leading the scaling up of business services, HR and sales as well as digitisation and acquisition integration in both large scale global corporations, including Procter & Gamble and Shell, and a start-up B2B cloud services provider, Transora.  His appointment to this role will enable David Beech to focus on driving the continued growth of the Group’s professional services revenue streams.

Jane Pateman brings 17 years’ experience in senior HR roles at listed businesses including Centrica and British Gas, and culminating in her current role as Group HR Director at Biffa plc where she has been responsible for developing the People Strategy for approximately 8000 employees across 4 operating divisions.

She has a strong track record in driving business benefits through the development and delivery of human capital strategies.  During her eight years at Biffa, she has provided significant support in delivering solutions during major growth periods, including during its IPO as well as driving people and cultural integration for the multiple acquisitions Biffa has made over the past five years.

Jane will chair Knights’ Remuneration Committee and also join the Audit Committee, replacing Richard on both.

Balbinder ("Bal") Singh Johal, Chairman of Knights, commented:  “In anticipation of continued significant growth, we are delighted that Richard has accepted the role as Chief Operating Officer, enabling David to focus on driving growth.  His skills and experience are ideal as we scale the Knights business model, integrate acquisitions and exploit the opportunity that technology provides to transform how Knights delivers professional services to clients.

“We are also delighted to welcome Jane to the Board. Her proven record of delivering business benefits through effective HR strategies during periods of growth will be crucial to Knights as we continue to deliver our strategy of growing both organically and through carefully selected acquisitions.

Download the full press statement here.