Jarvis, the infrastructure support services group, has appointed John O'Kane finance director.

O'Kane will join the board at the end of April, but will not replace current finance director, Alasdair Marnoch, until the end of May. Marnoch will stay on until then to hand over responsibilities to O'Kane.

O'Kane joins after a brief spell as finance director at Eco-Bat Technologies. Before that he was finance director at both Peterhouse Group and Kelda Group.

A statement from Jarvis said:

"The planned departure of Alasdair Marnoch was agreed at the time of his appointment. Alasdair's remit was to oversee the group's financial restructuring, which was completed in late summer 2005."

Chief executive Alan Lovell is also expected to leave Jarvis in the near future. In November, chairman Steven Norris said Lovell was unlikely to "remain for long once the headquarters moves to York in the first half of 2006".