Weightmans appoints Stuart Whittle as Chief Innovation and Technology Officer

UK News

10
Feb
2022

Editor

National law firm Weightmans today announces the promotion of Stuart Whittle to Chief Innovation and Technology officer, a new role for the firm with direct accountability for providing an increased service and product offering to its clients. 

Based in Liverpool, Whittle joined Weightmans in 1993 as a trainee solicitor and worked as a professional indemnity lawyer until 2003 when he began working across the firm’s operational business. Since then, he has held roles including Head of Information Services, Information Services and Operations Director, and most recently held the role of Business Services and Innovation Director overseeing numerous operations functions, including IT, Innovation and Business Change.  

In his new role, Whittle will now also be responsible for leading the day-to-day operation of the firm’s product and innovation functions to help provide new services, products and solutions while also improving the depth of services it currently provides. To achieve this, he will be overseeing the performance of the technology, data services, business change and the new product and innovation teams, as the firm seeks to create greater agility and efficiencies and help mitigate risks for clients. 

Additionally, off the back of her success as Innovation Manager over the last four years, Catriona Wolfenden has been promoted to Product and Innovation Director where she will be running a team of Product and Innovation partners, legal engineers and technologists, and product managers. The team will be implementing the firm’s new product and innovation goals across the business, ensuring that all clients have the opportunity to take advantage of the wide variety of product and innovation offerings that it has developed.

Stuart said: “Technology and innovation are two of the most important tools that we can use to allow our clients to evolve their business and achieve their full potential, while also helping us to achieve our ambitions of becoming a Top 30 law firm. We recognise that not every problem is a legal problem, and not every problem requires a technology solution, which is why our approach to innovation and problem-solving is firming rooted in collaboration with clients.

“Creating one team that oversees all this activity across our workstreams is something that will really set Weightmans apart and help us to drive efficiencies both internally and externally. Having been with the firm for nearly 30 years, I have a deep understanding of the services we can offer and how best to get them to our clients. I am excited for the new challenge and look forward to seeing what we can achieve.”

Whittle and Wolfenden’s appointments follow a number of significant technology and product announcements for Weightmans over the last year. In November it launched PREDiCT and Matterlab, two pioneering data and analytics tools that will transform the handling of large loss insurance claims and personal injury insurance claims, respectively.