RLB brings in digital chief

Rider Levett Bucknall has brought in its first chief digital officer.

Matt Sharp (pictured) joined earlier this month after working in a number of senior IT roles in his career which has included head of IT roles at shopping centre developer Westfield and retailer Marks & Spencer as well as IT director at Aecom.

Sharp will sit on the senior leadership team, the group below board level.

The move comes ahead of the firm’s 10 year plan which begins this May and will see the number of staff in the UK jump by more than 70% to 1,200 with turnover nearly doubling to £150m.

Chief executive Andy Reynolds said: “A key priority for RLB UK is the focused development of our digital capability and transformation to provide better outcomes for our clients.”

Last November, Reynolds was made RLB’s first chief executive since Lance Taylor who left the firm in 2014.

The employee-owned firm has 10 offices in the UK with its largest London, where it has around 300 staff, which, along with Birmingham and Manchester, both of which have around 70 staff each, are its so-called ‘spine’ offices.

Reynolds said it didn’t expect to open more offices in the future but added existing ones, especially in the north, would get bigger.