Brown Shipley has appointed Julian Hardiman to the newly-created role of overall head of private banking.

Brown Shipley, the UK-based private bank, has named Julian Hardiman as its new head of private banking, a role in which he will oversee the firm’s investment management, banking, financial planning and pension planning teams.

Hardiman, who will also sit on Brown Shipley’s board of directors, was latterly the firm’s head of private banking for the northwestern region of the UK, based in Manchester. He will remain in this office but with a UK-wide remit as overall head of private banking - a newly-created role.

Hardiman has been with Brown Shipley since 2004, serving as a private client director for seven years before assuming leadership of private banking in the northwest at the start of this 2012. Before joining Brown Shipley he spent four years at Brewin Dolphin.

Brown Shipley said in a statement that next year will be one of “significant change” as a number of structural changes made this year bed down and the firm forges ahead with an ambitious new business plan to grow its assets under management.

Among the recent changes at Brown Shipley was the appointment of Alan Dickinson as chairman of its board of directors and the addition of John Misselbrook and Jim Willens as non-executive directors.

In other senior appointments, October saw Michael Chambers named as head of internal audit. Chambers latterly worked in risk and control in the asset management division of the Co-operative Banking Group.

Brown Shipley is now ultimately owned by Luxembourg-based Precision Capital. Brown Shipley’s parent company, KBL European Private Bankers, was bought by Precision at the start of August for €1 billion ($1.3 billion). KBL European Private Bankers is a European network of local private banking businesses, of which Brown Shipley is the UK arm.