Appointments

Stuart Johnstone has joined Peterborough-based contractor Bernard Ward as construction manager. Johnstone will have responsibility for contracts in and around Cambridge. Charlie Lacy Scott has also joined the firm as business development executive.

Shepherd Construction has promoted Gordon Ray to regional director for London and the South East. Ray has been with Shepherd since 1999, when he joined as a board director with responsibility for PFI and commercial matters.

Colin Napier has joined Benson as contracts manager. Napier comes to the contractor from Bowmer & Kirland subsidiary QBS, where he was construction manager.

Skanska has appointed Stuart Graham as chief executive officer and president. Graham, who will be based in Sweden, succeeds Claes Björk. Graham has been with Skanska since 1990 and was executive vice-president of the group.

Hull-based construction group Houlton has made two appointments. David Padden and Andrew Kingston have both been promoted to executive director with responsibility for construction and building, and maintenance respectively.

Parting company

Amey has been hit by three top management resignations. The troubled contractor has lost Simon Hipperson, head of its programme management unit, to Skanska, technology division services head John Robinson and financial director David Miller, who described dealing with all the new accounting standards as appealing as a "cup of sick and I'm not going to drink it" in an interview with the Daily Telegraph. Amey is selling off its PFI investments stake and slashing 300 jobs.

Colin Skellett has resigned as non-executive chairman of Jarvis following his arrest over an alleged £1m payment he received when head of Wessex Water. Non-executive director Lord McGowan will take over as acting chairman.

Taylor Woodrow is making 180 staff redundant in a bid to cut costs and is relocating its head office from Middlesex to the West Midlands. Financial director Adrian Auer has resigned, stating family and personal reasons.

John O'Neill, chief operating officer at Inspace, has left after just weeks in the job. O'Neill was promoted to head of Willmott Dixon's fit-out arm earlier this year, but left in the summer after a restructuring of the company.