Wbg Announces Senior Appointments to Drive Growth Plans – Scottish Business News

Wbg, one of Scotland’s leading independent specialist accounting advisory, audit, and tax firms, has made two senior appointments to newly created roles to drive forward its growth plans.

As People & Culture Partner, Victoria Kirkhope’s role is to lead the people and culture agenda across Wbg to help underpin its ambitious strategy for growth.

As Head of Entrepreneurship, Gordon Merrylees’ role is to support the Head of Business Development, Scott Grant, in driving Wbg’s offering across entrepreneurial-led SMEs throughout the UK.

Ms Kirkhope is an experienced senior HR professional, having enjoyed 20 years with RSM, latterly working as a key part of the UK firm’s National Leadership Team in the role of Partner – Head of People.

Her experience and expertise lie in areas including talent management; leadership development; enabling organisational and cultural change; and driving employee engagement.

Of her appointment, Ms Kirkhope said: “I’m delighted to be joining the Wbg team at a time of exciting growth. From my very first interaction, I was struck by the passion and vision of the senior team.

Their commitment to innovation and excellence aligns with my own values and I believe we have a fantastic opportunity ahead. I’m very much looking forward to contributing to Wbg’s future success.”

During his 36 years at RBS, Mr Merrylees worked with and supported countless entrepreneurs, early-stage startups and high-growth SMEs as he led and, ultimately, accelerated the Bank’s support programme for UK businesses.

In 2022, Mr Merrylees joined N4 Partners as the firm’s Head of Ventures supporting N4 Partners’ broader work in investing third party capital, making direct investments, supporting entrepreneurs and partnering with high growth and fast-moving businesses throughout the UK who have reached critical inflexion points.

Gordon will continue in his N4 role as well as support the Business Development function of Wbg lead by Scott Grant.

N4 Partners’ recent seven figure investment made it the majority shareholder of Wbg.

Of his appointment, Mr Merrylees said: “I’m both honoured and delighted to join Wbg at such an exciting time with ambitious growth plans to scale the business throughout the coming months and years.“

At Wbg we see entrepreneurs as the lifeblood of the UK economy and see tremendous potential to support their business growth ambitions by offering them specialised accounting, advisory, audit and tax expertise to help them start, scale and succeed.”

Allan Dowie, CEO said: “We’re delighted to have secured the services of such talented and experienced professionals as Victoria and Gordon to Wbg.

“Both will play crucial roles in helping us drive forward our growth agenda over the coming months and years.”

Last month, Wbg opened its new office network, and the business now operates across six main locations – Aberdeen, Ayrshire, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Lanarkshire, and Manchester – with a new location planned for the coming months.

From a standing start in 2022, Wbg has undertaken six acquisitions and employs 170 staff, and it will see a further headcount increase of 15% across the business over the coming months through both organic growth and acquisition.