Giles Insurance Brokers has appointed John McLaren-Stewart as UK sales director.

Giles said the new role will help create a "cohesive retail sales strategy" and will also support bank introducer relations and focus on new sales initiatives.

Giles group managing director Sarah Lyons, said: “As part of our strategy this year we have chosen to focus on our organic growth and we see mid corporate and corporate as fundamental area’s of growth.

"Earlier this year we launched our new corporate proposition and we are now pushing into a much more sales focused effort across all our branches.”

McLaren-Stewart joined Giles as regional managing director corporate & financial risks in 2010 when we it acquired his Brightstar Risk Solutions start-up business.

Lyons added: “John’s understanding of our business coupled with his ideas on how we can take our corporate business to the next level made him a natural choice for this role.”

Kevin Bonner has now been promoted to branch director of the corporate & financial risks division based in City of London.

Giles said this division is targeting larger business customers and has recently won a number of new accounts including Bywaters and Holiday Extras.