EAST Anglia-based insurance brokers the Alan Boswell Group has made two key appointments to keep pace with the company's continued growth.IT manager Richard Hartley has been made a director at the Bury St Edmunds, Norwich and Attleborough-based group, while Clare Ryalls from Stowmarket has been recruited to strengthen one of the group's specialist divisions.

EAST Anglia-based insurance brokers the Alan Boswell Group has made two key appointments to keep pace with the company's continued growth.

IT manager Richard Hartley has been made a director at the Bury St Edmunds, Norwich and Attleborough-based group, while Clare Ryalls from Stowmarket has been recruited to strengthen one of the group's specialist divisions.

“We are continuing to grow despite the credit crunch,” said managing director Alan Boswell, the businessman who founded the company 25 years ago. “And we will be taking on more staff as and when we can fit them in.”

Underwriter Ms Ryalls specialises in commercial business, one of the group's growing areas of business.

Much of the work she will be handling comes from the increasingly busy role the Group fulfils as a preferred supplier of insurance to Anglia Farmers, the leading agricultural purchasing co-operative in the UK.

Brought up in Kent, she has 17 years' experience in the insurance business, and previously worked in London, Chelmsford and Manchester. She commutes from her home in Stowmarket, where she is a keen member of the Stowmarket Striders running club. She also enjoys keeping fit and reading.

Mr Hartley joined the Alan Boswell Group eight years ago, when the company bought his 1000-client Insurance Solutions business. A year later he took responsibility for the group's IT and compliance work and, in 2003, began specialising solely in IT.

Alan Boswell said Mr Hartley's input was increasingly important because IT systems and e-commerce are central to the group's success. This was reflected in the fact that each year the business invests over half a million pounds in IT, he said.

“Richard will continue to head up IT but with particular responsibility for development of sales, both from the Web and from our schemes business,” he said.

Educated at Norwich's Hewett School, Mr Hartley, a 43-year-old father-of-three, lives with his wife Nicola and family at Halvergate. He is a keen skier, who worked as an instructor in the Alps for a number of years. He is a long-time member of the Norfolk Ski Club.