Appreciate Group elevates Julian Coghlan to interim CEO

The AIM-traded firm said Coghlan is the group's current chief commercial officer, having joined the business in August 2017, initially as group operations director.

Prior to that, he held senior executive roles in commercial functions at Adare Group, the customer communications services group, for 14 years.

He is also a regional councillor of the Confederation of British Industry.

As interim CEO, Appreciate said Coghlan would be responsible for all of the group's day-to-day commercial, operational, IT and human resources functions across the business, including sales and marketing, with a focus on driving revenues in line with its financial targets.

Parsons, as executive chairman, would retain direct responsibility for the group finance, legal and compliance teams, as well as strategic and governance matters.

The process to recruit long-term appointees for the roles of CEO and chief financial officer was progressing “well”, the board reports, with an “encouraging pool” of “high-calibre” candidates being interviewed.

At the same time, Appreciate announced that John Gittins and Sally Cabrini had agreed to continue as non-executive directors for two and three years, respectively, to ensure board-level continuity while the group's leadership team was going through a period of change.

“Following this appointment of an interim CEO, I believe we have a strong team in place to manage the business day-to-day and deliver on our expectations for the year, whilst continuing to focus on the group's medium-term strategy to drive sustainable growth,” said executive chairman Guy Parsons.

“I am encouraged by the quality of candidates I have seen for the permanent roles and look forward to updating on those appointments in due course.”

At 1148 BST, shares in Appreciate Group were up 1.11% at 30.33p.

Reporting by Josh White at Sharecast.com.