YORK'S city wide organisation dedicated to promoting and supporting the professional services sector has welcomed two new members to its board.

Karen Tinkler, director of PR and communications firm The Partners Group, and Michelle Mook, owner of people development firm Pro-Development, both based in York, will represent and champion the city’s marketing and HR sectors on the 12-strong York Professionals board of directors.

Ms Tinkler was part of the management buy-out team that acquired the Partners Group, based in The Mount, from its original founder ten years ago.

With almost 20 years’ PR and communications experience, she has worked in York for 18 years, and with clients throughout the country and overseas in the professional services, manufacturing, property, education, tourism, food and drink industries.

Ms Mook set up Pro-Development in 2011 to provide bespoke engagement and development solutions for small and medium sized businesses alongside training, coaching, team and leadership development.

A big advocate of experiential learning, Ms Mook is also an award-winning trainer with more than 20 years’ experience of working with blue chip businesses, local authorities, the NHS and the SME sector and can often be found speaking about raising employee engagement levels in Yorkshire.

York Professionals chairwoman Anne Taylor said: "We’re very lucky to have a strong board of directors representing professional services across the city, and Karen and Michelle’s arrival further cements this.

"We’re very happy to have them on the team; they are both very well connected in the city and beyond, and I know they’ll make a hugely valuable contribution to York Professionals’ continued success."

York Professionals is a membership organisation representing the professional services economy in York across seven core sectors: business support, creative and digital, finance, legal, marketing, people and property.

Through a programme of regular events and working alongside a series of strategic and corporate partners, the group’s aim is to support economic growth and help position York as a world-leading centre for international business and enterprise.