TWO ex-Northern Rock employees who set up an HR consultancy earlier this year have now recruited their former boss to help expand the business.

Maureen Lindberg and Monique Ewart left their senior positions at the troubled Newcastle lender to launch their own HR business Professional People Management (PPM), and have now recruited former boss Lynne Griffin as associate director.

Mrs Griffin has joined PPM in an ambassadorial role to promote the fledgling company across the region to small and medium-sized businesses.

Previously, she led the group-wide HR function at Northern Rock, where she was instrumental in delivering the HR aspects of several mergers and a number of restructures, before taking voluntary redundancy.

She said: “I am really excited about my new role.

“I am looking forward to being an advocate for the business, promoting it to businesses that haven’t got their own HR department and showing them just how we can help and add real value.

“It will be fun working with my former colleagues Maureen and Monique, we worked very well together at Northern Rock and collectively have very specialised skills, which I am looking forward to utilising.”

Director Ms Lindberg said: “We felt that the time was right to recruit our first member of staff and we couldn’t think of anyone better than Lynne.

“She is very well known in the region and has an incredibly high reputation for delivering strategic professional HR guidance.

“So, therefore, she was obviously the best person we could think of to help develop the business and attract new clients.”