Bury St Edmunds Farmers Club introduced its new head chef, Jamie Scott, to its members at a special event at the end of November.

Jamie has joined the club from award-winning restaurant The Willow Tree, in Bourn, where he worked with his older brother. He was raised within a family of chefs, including his mother and three of his four brothers.

Younger brother Shaw will be working alongside Jamie as chef de partie. Together they plan to introduce exciting new ideas and delicious dishes, many of which are regularly posted on the club’s social media outlets.

Jamie said: “I pride myself on using fresh and locally sourced Suffolk ingredients wherever possible, and creating dishes from scratch. I love taking traditional favourite dishes, and reworking them into something really special.”

: : Jenny Williams, a financial adviser at Claydon-based Kingsfleet Wealth and a member of the Society of Later Life Advisers (SOLLA), is celebrating after gaining her full accreditation from the society.

Jenny has 20 years of experience and in 2011 she achieved her Level 4 Diploma, and has since gone on to pass exams in Equity Release and Long Term Care and joins managing director Colin Low in holding the SOLLA accreditation.

It was the culmination of several months of preparation and work, concluding with a two hour face to face assessment of knowledge, skills and presentation ability.

Colin said: “This is a great achievement for Jenny as very few advisers have the knowledge, experience and commitment to complete this Accreditation. We believe that this achievement will assist in providing our clients with high quality and specialist independent financial advice. We are now the only Financial Planning firm in Suffolk with two people Accredited by the Society of Later Life Advisers.”

Kingsfleet Wealth currently has a team of four financial advisers.

: : Cloud telecoms provider X-on has been boosted by the addition of two new employees to its expanding workforce. The firm, based in Framlingham, processes several million SMS and call minutes per month and boast numerous clients from diverse industries, including household brands such as Kelloggs, Bupa and Fujitsu.

Becky Hall has joined the service delivery team as a provisioning engineer, to assist with building cloud telephony software solutions for new and existing customers.

Originally from Yorkshire, Becky relocated to Suffolk and subsequently graduated with a degree from University Campus Suffolk, before going on to work in various roles involving data analysis and SQL server administration.

Mark Bain has been appointed development engineer. Mark is a SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) expert joined Vodafone in the late 80s and has been involved in the telecoms industry for a number of years.

Chief executive Paul Bensley said: “Becky and Mark bring with them a wealth of experience, knowledge and enthusiasm to further enhance the quality of our Development and Service Delivery departments.

“As we continue our growth and expansion in new markets, it is essential that we are able to provide our clients with the best possible products and services, and we look forward to Becky and Mark contributing to this in the foreseeable future.”

: : Accountancy firm RSM has appointed Bury St Edmunds-based partner Melanie Reed as its national head of corporate tax.

Melanie is a tax partner with over 15 years’ experience advising companies and their shareholders on various taxation matters with clients ranging across all sectors and all sizes. She has advised businesses both in the UK and the US, and specialises in tax reporting under both IFRS and UK GAAP, and has acted as part of the reporting accountant team for listings both on the full market and AIM.

In her new role she will lead and further develop RSM’s national corporate tax offering.

UK head of tax Jim Meakin said: “I would like to welcome Melanie into her new role as our UK head of corporate tax where she will have a crucially important role as part of our tax leadership team. She has a great deal of experience of advising businesses both in the UK and internationally, and I have no doubt her leadership will increase and further develop our existing corporate tax offering at this exciting time for RSM.”

: : Investment and financial planning group Tilney Bestinvest has taken on two financial planners to cover East Anglia.

This completes the creation of a three-strong team to serve the firm’s clients in the area. Experienced financial planners Neil Dobson and David Heaton have joined the firm to operate across a wide region including Ipswich, while based in Norwich and Colchester respectively. They will report to director of financial planning David Durrant, who arrived at Tilney Bestinvest in September to head up the firm’s operations in East Anglia.

The team will operate as the firm’s ‘feet on the ground’ in the East Anglian region, and will deliver financial advice to clients alongside investment managers as part of the firm’s unique ‘two expert’ approach, which delivers a high quality integrated wealth management service to clients.

Neil Dobson is a Chartered Financial Planner who joins Tilney Bestinvest from Wren Sterling, where he spent two years giving independent advice to clients throughout East Anglia. He has over 25 years’ experience in the financial services industry and has been advising since 2000.

David Heaton joins the firm from Birkett Long Solicitors where he spent a year as an independent financial planning manager, dealing with solicitors and the legal aspects of financial planning on a day to day basis. He is a Level 4 Diploma Qualified financial planner who has previously had roles with Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland and Sedgwick Independent Financial Advisors.

David Durrant, director of financial planning and chartered financial planner, said: “We are demonstrating a strong commitment to developing our presence in East Anglia, at a time when many other large financial planning and investment management firms are reducing their offices in the region.

“Demand for trusted financial planning is currently higher than ever before, right across the UK. In East Anglia we have assembled a team with long-term experience in the region, who understand the needs and objectives of our clients here and will ensure they receive the high quality advice and service they rightly expect.”