Insider Media Limited

Marketing Birmingham, the city’s public/private sector strategic marketing partnership, has made two new appointments. Chris Loughran, vice chairman and Midlands senior partner of Deloitte, and Mark Smith, Midlands chairman and Birmingham senior partner of fellow accountancy firm PwC, will both join the board today.

The new appointments were made as the organisation aims to bolster its newly launched inward investment programme, Business Birmingham.

Loughran has returned to Birmingham from London having led Deloitte’s Technology consulting practice for the last ten years. Research recently undertaken by IBM-PLI, the global location specialists, identified the technology sector as a key target for Business Birmingham due to the city’s strengths in this area.

Loughran said: “I am joining Marketing Birmingham at a particularly exciting time. The recent transfer of Birmingham City Council's inward investment function to Marketing Birmingham has resulted in some ambitious new targets for the organisation, including the creation of 7,000 new jobs by 2015.

"As a recent returner to the city, I am also particularly keen to play my part in getting Birmingham rightfully recognised as a great city in which to live and work."

He is joined by Mark Smith, who heads PwC’s largest practice outside of London. Under Smith’s leadership the practice provides a range of services including assurance and tax guidance, assistance with corporate finance issues and business turnaround counsel, to clients across the Midlands.

With financial services also highlighted by IBM-PLI as an area of opportunity for the city, Smith will assist in the development of the Business Birmingham programme and will provide potential investors with an insight into the industry.