At a special service in the King’s Chapel in February, eight Gibraltarians who have served with or supported the Rock’s St John Ambulance Brigade were inducted as confreres at various levels in the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem.

As officio patron of the Brigade in Gibraltar and the Queen’s representative, the Governor Sir Francis Richards officiated at the ceremony along with two senior members of the Order – John Strachan, a Deputy Lord Prior, and Rear Admiral Andrew Gough CB – who flew to Gibraltar for the occasion, described as “the most significant event of its type ever staged by St John in Gibraltar”.

Of the eight “postulants” two were knighted, one was admitted as a Commander of the Order, two as Officers (or “Brothers) and three as serving brothers. The eight are Leslie Edmonds, Joseph Chiara (knights), Nigel Pardo (Commander) Albert Mena, Lt Col. Dennis Duarte (officers) and Guy Stagnetto Jnr, Ernest Lima and Richard Buttigieg who will become Serving Brothers of the Order.

Following a restructuring of the Ibex Group Richard Hill has been appointed managing director of Ibex Insurance Services; David Whitmore is managing director of Iberian Expatriate Agencia de Suscripción S.L. (Iberian Claims Services); and Lowri Madoc is appointed as group marketing director. The three are pictured (below) with the group’s chairman and CEO John Harrison

In addition, Yvette Burnett, claims manager, has been appointed as associate director of Iberian Claims Services, which has relocated to new offices in Sotogrande. Under Whitmore’s guidance it will expand its claims handling services to other non-Spanish insurance companies and Lloyd’s syndicates who transact insurance business in Spain and Portugal, the group’s MD John Harrison told B2B.

The company was also in the process of applying for authorisation from the Spanish regulators as a ‘Green Card and 4th European Directive Representative’, Harrison said.

Paul Wharton has joined the local Barclays Bank team as international corporate manager after 26 years with the bank in the UK. Starting off on the bottom rung – making tea in a London branch – he has come a long way since then and last year was lauded as one of the bank’s top performers in the business communities of the West End.

“On leaving school, I started my working life making tea in Barclays’ West London branch…but that didn’t last long as, deciding that I would enjoy banking as a career, I went off to spend three years doing business studies,” Wharton told B2B. “And by the time I had returned to the branch to work with its small business customers, there was someone else making the tea.”

Later a spell as a risk analyst was followed by his appointment as corporate manager for the bank’s clients in central London.

“I enjoy working with people and from the outset liked the idea of being able to go out in the business community doing deals,” he admits. “I suppose that’s what attracted me to banking, and early on I realised that if one can get the relationship right everything else falls into place.”

Though one of the bank’s top performers he switched to Gibraltar seeking “a new challenge,” Wharton said. “But also I am convinced that Gibraltar is poised for massive growth and I want to be part of that when the floodgates open. Part of my job here will be to continue to raise Gibraltar’s profile – mainly in the EU, but also internationally – explaining the benefits of doing business with Gibraltar…and with the bank of course.”

Though a specialist in telecommunications issues, gaming and sports law, Craig Fortunato has never received direct instructions from his father Charles – Gibraltar’s “Mister Telephones” who retired at the end of February after 33 years in the Rock’s communications industry.

“It is just the way that things have turned out,” Craig told B2B. “ We were always both very conscious that because of nepotism issues, the professional relationship I maintained with my father was certainly kept on a purely professional basis. So whenever my father would instruct a law firm I would have to prove my worth in the same way as any other lawyer.”

Craig, who this week was appointed as a partner in the local law firm Verralls worked for Norwich Union and Prescott insurance and as a paralegal at Hassans before gaining a law degree and working as a barrister in the firm where he specialized in telecommunications and financial services matters.

“I had a great grounding at Hassans – a marvelous training – but it is such a big firm that I decided to move somewhere smaller – somewhere I could do my own thing,” he says of his decision to switch to Verralls three years ago. “I had known John (Verrall) from his time at Hassans and welcomed the chance he gave me to spread my wings.”

Though he continues to work extensively in the financial sector and in the telecommunications field – advising on EU regulatory matters including competition and licensing issues – his own enthusiasm for sport encouraged him to work closely with BDO’s Stoy Hayward in the UK to try and bring a Gibraltar angle to a media-rights package for Premiership soccer players in Britain.

It was the Rock’s “prospects for dramatic economic growth” which persuaded Scots-born, but Jersey trained, Kenny MacLean to switch to the Rock after being head-hunted by the RBS head of corporate banking in Gibraltar, Marvin Cartwright. “I see the Rock having a very rosy future and I want to be part of it,” he said soon after his arrival at the end of January.

MacLean joined RBS in Jersey 12 years ago after obtaining a degree in sociology and economics from Plymouth University, starting out in the bank’s personal credit section before becoming a corporate relationship assistant and, later, relationship manager in Jersey, London and Zurich.

As a corporate relationship manager he was responsible for the needs of about 100 of the bank’s clients. However, much of his work was as a “corporate transactor” – preparing and handling individual deals, many of them complicated, for major clients.
“I grew up in Jersey and, after graduating wanted to return there…and on Jersey there are few serious occupations other than in banking,” MacLean explains his decision to join RBS. “Obviously my studies of economics were useful in gaining a post, but since then I’ve often also found my knowledge of sociology to be a bonus.”

Strictly speaking, MacLean is no newcomer to the Rock. Over the past five years he has visited Gibraltar several times and has also worked at a distance to help the local corporate division.

“I feel that I already know and understand the market place,” he says of the local banking sector. “In the past I was providing transaction assistance as a sort of ‘back room boy’. There will be very much more of a frontline focus in my new role.”

“His in-put has been extremely useful and we’re delighted to have Kenny join us on a permanent basis,” Cartwright said. “We are looking for him to fill a specialized niche within the relationship team.” .

Though she admits that she knows “next to nothing about wines”, a diploma in marketing and 20 years of hands on experience in retail management with British Homes Stores in the UK persuaded Anglo Hispano that Carol Wuenschmann was the right person to replace Tony Hernandez as manager of its retail outlet in Main Street. “However, I am off to take a crash course on wines and the staff here are helping me get over any initial humps,” she says with a smile.

With BHS in Norwich Carol consistently increased sales and gained wide experience in promotions and marketing which she believes stood her in good stead when she applied for the Gibraltar job.

Though she had a degree in bio-chemistry and a promising career in Britain, when Dundee-born Karen Duncan visited Gibraltar on holiday she “fell in love with the place”. A few weeks later, she was back on the Rock…job hunting.

“I knew there weren’t many opportunities for a bio-chemist, but was quite happy to make a career swap, and was lucky enough to get a job with the Royal Bank of Scotland working in the corporate client service section soon after I started looking,” she explains.

That was three years ago and in February, after a year in operations followed her first job in the bank, Karen was promoted to one of two newly-created positions providing relationship manager support in the corporate division headed by Marvin Cartwright. The other promotion was of Jordan Ramage, who joined the bank in October 2002 and who for the past three years has been part of its electronic banking team.

Tasmanian-born Dan Heath, a former Morgan Stanley banker and Stephanie Hill, a City high-flier, have joined SG Hambros in Gibraltar to operate as private bankers dealing with the bank’s clients on the Costas. Both are experts in the complex field of financial investment products and have the wide range of banking skills required of today’s state-of-the-art approaches to investment structures.

Heath kicked off his career in finance after graduating in economics from university in Tasmania working for a small broking house in Sidney 18 years ago. This was just after Australia deregulated brokerage houses, many of which were taken over by banks.

He moved on to the UK where after a spell with Northern Trust he joined Morgan Stanley – and was “thrown in at the deep end”, opening new markets in former Soviet block countries including Bulgaria, Rumania and Hungary. In the early stages much of his work involved in “trading debt” – bonds from the former regime and borrowings of new enterprises.

For almost eight years he “commuted” between London and eastern Europe, spending half of each month in the former Comecon countries. Back in London he had a short spell as an entrepreneur in his own right – opening a coffee bar which he later sold. But he missed the buzz and environment of banking.

“Working at the cutting edge of a big bank you are surrounded by smart people all the time,” Heath explains. “You become so accustomed to it that you take it for granted…and it is only when you have left that environment and the mental stimulation that it provides that you feel the loss. I missed that and went back…”

A CV sent off to several possible employers reached Franco Cassar; the two men met…and Heath was back in the “exciting environment” though this time in Gibraltar and on the Costas.

Her French mother having given her a linguistic fluency and with a string of A-levels behind her Stephanie Edghill went straight into banking in the City from school and – as a fast track entry to the profession – within a year at B N Paribas, when she was still only19 she was working in the bank’s dealing room and by the time she was 20 – at the time of the first invasion of Kuwait – was handling the bank’s US dollar book…a remarkable achievement for her age.

“That was about when I started to explore structured products and later with CNCA (a French bank later taken over by Hyperbank) was encouraged to use my French skills on the corporate desk.”

In a later break from banking four years she spent a year gaining an MBA – with a thesis on financing charities – putting this to good use in a consultancy role with Action Aid before moving to Spain where she represented Coutts (Swiss) Bank in Marbella.

“I sat next to Franco (Cassar) at a dinner and he asked me to send in my CV…and here I am,” she explains.