Hammonds has turned to management consultants Bain & Co for its first non-executive chair, appointing Crawford Gillies.
Gillies spent 23 years at Bain, where he was most recently managing director for Europe. He is also a director of the Department of Trade and Industry, and was previously chair of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) for London.
His appointment comes after months of searching for the non-executive chair role, which was one of the key recommendations of the firm’s strategic review carried out in late 2005.
The position replaces that of senior partner, a post most recently filled by Richard Burns who resigned a year early after Hammonds suffered from a series of poor financial results.
Managing partner Peter Crossley told The Lawyer: “Crawford’s got particular experience in perfomance improvement and managing organisational change. We think his experience and his long career with Bain will stand us in good stead.”
Gillies will work with Hammonds’ partnership board to strengthen corporate governance. He said he was convinced that the firm had a strong foundation for future growth.
He has already started work at Hammonds, getting to know the firm and its partners before the next partnership board meeting at the end of this month.
