EY makes partner appointments in South West

Published by

Peter Davison

Karen Kirkwood

Professional services firm EY has announced the appointment of two new partners to its Bristol office as it continues to make significant investments in top talent to meet client demand and support the growth of the business.

The appointments include three internal promotions and one external hire.

Eleri James and Rob Williams have both been promoted to partner this month, joining Artyom Shlenkin and Marcus Graham who joined the Bristol office as partners earlier this year.

Across the UK, EY has strengthened its partnership with 267 new appointments, of which 161 are internal promotions and 106 are external hires.

This latest round of appointments has expanded EY’s UK partner population by 10 per cent, increasing the total Partner population in the UK to 1,683.

The firm says the new appointments reflect its increased investment in its sectors, service lines and regional business, in areas such as audit, financial services, technology consulting, EY Parthenon, private equity, and the energy sector.

42 per cent (112) of the new appointments are equity partners and around a quarter (62) of all the new partner appointments are based outside of London.

Karen Kirkwood (pictured), office managing partner at EY in Bristol, said: “As we continue to strengthen our offering in the South West, I’m thrilled to welcome this year’s partner appointments, Eleri and Rob.

"Both have worked diligently to reach this career milestone, bringing a wealth of experience in assurance and tax that will be vital in supporting the continued growth of both EY and its clients.”

Eleri joined EY as a new graduate in 2000, working in London and Los Angeles before joining the Bristol office in 2008.

She has worked across multiple industries with a particular focus on consumer products businesses.

Her promotion will see her continue to lead on these engagements as well as focus on developing the next generation of leaders for EY in the South West.

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Rob Williams joined EY in 2021, focusing on large multinational businesses in the South West, South Wales and Midlands.

Rob has 25 years’ experience in tax, having previously worked at Deloitte for 17 years as well as Computershare, a listed multinational in Bristol, for six years.

His focus at EY is helping companies manage their tax affairs across a broad range of areas including compliance and reporting, tax risk and governance and dealing with tax and business change.

Peter Davison

Peter Davison is deputy editor of The Business Magazine. He has spent his life in journalism – doing work experience in newsrooms in and around Bristol while still at school, and landing his first job on a local newspaper aged 19. By 28 he was the youngest newspaper editor in the country. An early advocate of online news, he spent the first years of the 2000s telling his bosses that the internet posed both the biggest opportunity and greatest threat to the newspaper industry and the art of journalism. He was right on both counts. Since 2006 he has enjoyed a career as a freelance journalist. He lives in rural Wiltshire with one wife, two children, and three cats.