Ashurst has recruited UKTV’s Jan Gooze-Zijl as its new chief financial and operations officer.
Gooze-Zijl will join the firm next February following the departure of former CFO Brian Dunlop last summer. Dunlop joined the firm from Allen & Overy in 2013 to oversee the integration between Ashurst and Blake Dawson post-merger.
In his new role, Gooze-Zijl looks set to take on a broader remit than his predecessor, with responsibilities spanning financial management, IT and business development.
This marks Gooze-Zijl’s first job in legal after six years at media company UKTV. He took on the role of CFO in 2010, adding operations to his duties in 2014.
Other roles include head of strategic planning at Virgin Media and head of organisation development at O2 Europe. He also held a series of operational and strategic roles at Accenture and Allied Domecq.
Gooze-Zijl joins Ashurst as the firm looks to improve upon two consecutive years of falling average profit per equity partner (PEP).
PEP dropped 19 per cent in 2015/16 from £747,000 to £603,000, while revenue dipped nearly 10 per cent from £561m to £505m on a sterling basis.
The firm sought to free up cash earlier this year by delaying quarterly distributions over the summer. However, the firm reversed its decision at the start of this month ahead of a vote on whether to doll out single payments in future instead of quarterly ones.
Ashurst is understood to have launched a firmwide review of its costs earlier this year, following a series of costly initiatives globally. These include the roll-out of its new practice management system, known as Project Prism internally.
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