People Moves – Atul Kochhar, Christopher Trotter, Lesley Reynolds…

All the latest appointments and promotions…

Hotels

Vicky La Trobe has moved to Choice Hotels Europe to become marketing director - Europe. She has worked for the company previously as marketing services director, but for the past three years she has been director of marketing for Millennium and Copthorne Hotels.

Patrick Dempsey will take on the role of chief executive of Macdonald Hotels from 5 August. He succeeds Donald Macdonald, who will become executive chairman of the company. Patrick is currently chief executive of Restaurant Associates UK, the fine-dining division of Compass. Frank O'Callaghan, non-executive chairman of Macdonald Hotels, will fill the role of deputy chairman. Also at Macdonald Hotels, Mike McGill, former finance director of logistics company Malcolm Group, joins as group financial controller.

Restaurants

Benares, a new 90-seat Indian restaurant in London, opened this week with Atul Kochhar as chef-proprietor. Atul was previously head chef at the well-known London restaurant Tamarind.

	!](#)
	Tearle  Jones

David Tearle and Christine Jones have become the manager-proprietors of the 70-seat Globe restaurant in Widnes, Cheshire. David's last position was as sales director at Rodney Densem Wines of Crewe, and prior to that he ran the Royal Bath hotel in Bournemouth. Christine was previously executive housekeeper at the Combermere Abbey self-catering cottages in Shropshire. ### Plus… Myres Castle, a private house and events venue in Auchtermuchty, Fife, has made two new appointments. Christopher Trotter takes over the kitchens as head chef and Tom Wellwood joins as front of house manager. Christopher was previously chef-proprietor at Scotland's Larder, a restaurant in Upper Largo in Fife. Tom leaves the Rusacks hotel in St Andrews, Fife, where he was catering manager.

	![
	Reynolds

Lesley Reynolds, managing director of recruitment consultancy Portfolio International, has taken on the role of chief executive of the company. She takes over from David Coubrough, who set up the company eighteen years ago and has left to pursue other business interests. VisitBritain, the new organisation formed by the merger of the English Tourism Council and the British Tourist Authority, has made four new appointments to its board. The new members are: Alan Parker, managing director of Whitbread Hotel Company; Digby Jones, director general of the Confederation of British Industry and founder chairman of the Tourism Alliance; Vicountess Penelope Cobham, chairman of the British Casino Association and chairman of the Civic Trust; and Martin George, marketing and commercial development director of British Airways and chairman of the Marketing Group of Great Britain. If you have moved jobs recently or received a promotion and would like to feature in this column, please e-mail your details to