Alison Murrell is the latest graduate appointed by Savills

Alison Murrell, who graduated from Birmingham University earlier this year with a 2:1 BSc in Economics and Geography, has been appointed to the Savills office in Taunton, Somerset.

Since 2007, Savills has welcomed more than 700 graduates to its national programme.

Peter Grubb, head of planning at Savills Taunton, said: “We’re committed to developing young talent through our graduate programme at Savills and are delighted to be welcoming Alison to the office.

“Alison will work with our experienced teams to develop her skills and knowledge as she progresses in the role and builds her career at Savills.”

In light of Covid-19, Savills has continued to adapt and its graduate induction this year will be a virtual learning programme.

“[It] will be interactive throughout [the pandemic] to ensure our graduates are on-boarded into Savills effectively throughout these circumstances,” said Noel McGonigle, UK director of Human Resources at Savills.

Hunters in Wetherby is now franchise-owned

Hunters has transferred its Wetherby branch in Yorkshire from being group-owned to franchise-owned, enabling new franchise partner Justin Johnson to grow the business under independent stewardship.

Johnson, who has been with Hunters for more than 10 years, will now look to grow his own franchise with his long-standing team, as part of the Hunters network.

Glynis Frew, chief executive of Hunters property plc, said: “At Hunters we believe it is right that we own some of our own branches, so that we can test various initiatives before proposing them to the wider network – and it is also important that we are invested in both the ups and downs with our fellow agents.

“However, we do want to be able to offer new opportunities within the company and it is vital that we adhere to our mission ‘to give our people the opportunity to grow”, so there is currently a window of opportunity for some branches to convert to franchised offices giving new leadership teams the chance to flourish.”

Meanwhile, in the nearby York office, Georgina Spence has been promoted to manager for lettings, while Peter Croft, who was also in the Hunters York office, has joined the franchise team and is now responsible for rolling out new technical software advances to the franchise network.

Frew commented: “Despite an interesting year of unexpected challenges, we are positively optimistic and are as committed as ever to our branches and our people.”

The Hunters network has just reported a 30% rise in profit as part of its interim results, with strong predictions for 2021.

Frew added: “We have enjoyed strong interim results this year and look forward to a strong 2021 and beyond, with a number of exciting new initiatives which will be formally announced soon.”

Nick Ball is appointed as mio’s head of sales and client services

mio, the data driven sales progressions platform, has appointed Nick Ball as head of sales and client services.

Ball, who has more than 18 years’ experience in estate agency, joins mio from the firm’s parent group, tmgroup, where he was head of business development.

He will be responsible for managing the mio sales, account management and client services teams.

He said: “mio is a great product and I know that it would have made a huge difference to the agencies I worked in and managed.”

Emma Vigus, mio managing director, says that over the past two years the platform has focused on developing the mio proposition and securing a loyal customer base of over a thousand agents.

Vigus commented: “We have a great product and we have the right foundations in place to rapidly increase the number of estate agents using mio.

“We undertook a rigorous search process to find the right person for this important role. Nick is one of the few people in the residential property industry who has worked at the coal face of agency; has a really rounded understanding of residential property transactions and has a proven ability to lead a successful sales team. We’re delighted that he’s chosen to join mio.”