The former chief of a leading venture capital company, who last year managed the £80 million sale of international clothing and footwear business, Ben Sherman, has been appointed non-executive chairman at a Londonderry-based chartered quantity surveying firm. Bob McGowan-Smyth, who headed up Enterprise Equity – Northern Ireland ’s largest private equity fund - between 1996 and 2004, has taken up the post at Sammon Surveyors, which also has offices in Belfast and Dublin .

Mr McGowan-Smyth, a chartered accountant by profession with over 14 years’ venture capital experience, also led Enterprise Equity’s £100 million sale of Belfast-based BCO Technologies to a US public company in 2000, following its flotation on the Alternative Investment Market. He has been a director on the boards of 16 private and public sector companies.

Mr McGowan-Smyth says that his role at the chartered quantity surveying practice is to help guide the company through further growth and expansion.

“Sammon Surveyors has developed from a one-man operation in the early 1980s into a 25-strong team across three offices, carrying out work from major local and international clients,” he says.

“The company has a new Belfast presence, new staff and several new clients in the greater Belfast area.

“It has grown steadily and in a managed way since it was founded and we intend to continue to expand, boosted by our new Belfast office,” he says. “My role is to help strengthen, develop and grow the company in a cost effective way and to ensure that it is exploring all opportunities for development.”

Mr McGowan-Smyth’s other directorships include Balcas Limited, the Enniskillen-based wood product supplier and renewable energy business, and Crescent Capital NI Limited, the Belfast-based venture capital fund manager. After joining Enterprise Equity in 1990, Mr McGowan-Smyth was chief executive from 1996-2004, before setting up his own business, financial and venture capital consultancy.

Sammon Surveyors recently opened its new office on Belfast ’s Corporation Square . Founded and headquartered in Derry in 1984, it launched a Dublin operation in 1998. It employs some 25 staff across its three branches.