The team growth is in response to increasing demand for the firm’s services, driven by both the challenging macroeconomic facing businesses, and growing awareness about the risks posed by cyber breaches and fraud-related incidents.

Claire Probert has been promoted to director within the forensic investigation team. She joined Grant Thornton in 2015, following almost 15 years working in forensic for a Big Four firm.

Claire has significant expert witness experience having advised a number of clients across a wide range of disputes in recent years, the last 12 months seeing a number of instructions in the fishing sector.

She has also amassed significant experience of undertaking fraud investigations, as well as anti-bribery and corruption cases. Increasingly, however, clients are enlisting her counsel on risk management strategies for cybersecurity threats, an area in which she is spending an increasing amount of time as a consequence of the increase in cyber risk for both individuals and businesses alike.

In the restructuring team, Julie Tait has also been promoted to director, having been at the firm since 2018. With twenty years of corporate and personal insolvency experience, Julie has worked with a number of clients, helping to safeguard hundreds of jobs in the past 12 months.

The most high-profile of these was leading a process to secure the future of one of the country’s largest local newspaper groups, Scottish Provincial Press (SPP). Completed just before Christmas last year, the deal saved 135 jobs and ensured the survival of 18 local newspapers, including the Inverness Courier. She also led the administration and going concern sale of a care home operator during 2019.

Julie Dallas, who has been with Grant Thornton since summer 2018, has been promoted to manager within the team, and they have also welcomed Andrew Turton, who joins as an assistant manager from PwC where he spent more than three years.

Stuart Preston, partner and head of Grant Thornton’s restructuring and forensic team in Scotland, said: “Clients continue to call on our expertise in restructuring and we’re seeing increased demand driven by the challenging macroeconomic conditions.

“We’ve also scaled our offering in cybersecurity as clients become more aware of the threat to business continuity posed by increasingly sophisticated cybercriminals, preying on the growing reliance on digital technology.

“As long-term investors in our people, we’re naturally delighted to see existing staff progress and take the step up to more senior leadership positions within the firm, while also very pleased to add skilled new talent to the team.”