• Alex Wilson has joined ICI as senior vice-president of HR. He moves from
Guinness where he was HR director for three-and-a-half years. Prior to joining
Guinness he spent 12 years at Grand Metropolitan, where his last post was senior
vice-president of HR for North and South America. Wilson started his career
with the Ford Motor Company in 1974 as a trainee personnel officer.
• Carmel Maguire, previously assistant chief executive for personnel and
training at Nottingham City Council, took up the post of HR director at the
British Library on January 4. She held the Nottingham job for eight years and
was in post when the council became a unitary authority on April 1 1998,
growing to three times its size. She previously worked for Hereford and
Worcester County Council where she specialised in employee relations and
employment law.
• Peter Armitage has been appointed head of HR at Minit UK, owners of
Sketchley, Supersnaps and MR Minit shoe bars and key cutters. Armitage has been
running his own consultancy since December 1997. Before that he was HR director
for Pret a Manger for a year, a job he took after leaving Superdrug where he
spent four years as personnel controller. He starts on February 7.
• West Bromwich building society has promoted Paul Turner to general manager
of people development. Turner has risen through the ranks after starting with
the company as a management trainee in 1975. He held posts as branch manager,
regional manager, operations controller and assistant general manager of
customer services before becoming assistant general manager of people
development in 1998.
• Tracy Newton-Blows has joined Dell Financial Services as European HR
executive with responsibility for HSB European business operations. She started
on January 5 after moving from Macmillan Davies Hodes where she was a
recruitment consultant.
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• Salisbury District Council has appointed Karen Gard as personnel and
training manager. It is her first move out of education after spending 19 years
as personnel officer at Yeovil College and three years as personnel manager at
Stroud College, Gloucester.
• IT recruitment consultancy Certes has promoted former HR manager Wendy
Merry to the new position of HR and customer services director. Merry joined
the company in 1998. She was previously head of HR at Sears Financial Services.
