McCarthy Stone, a developer and manager of retirement communities, has welcomed back two senior directors.

Brendon O’Neill has returned to the business as divisional managing director (DMD) for McCarthy Stone’s Southern region. Former DMD Shane Paull became the company’s chief operating officer.

O’Neill was previously DMD for McCarthy Stone’s South East division and is experienced in the housebuilding sector, having held similar roles at Barratt, Bovis, and latterly at Persimmon. McCarthy Stone’s Southern division is one of its four operating regions and covers the area from Hampshire across to Cornwall and South Wales. He will manage the division’s 14 open and selling sites and its 13 sites in development, along with buying 12 new sites a year. O’Neill will report to chief executive John Tonkiss.

Kim Caldwell will also return to McCarthy Stone as its new group sales and marketing director. Caldwell worked at McCarthy Stone between 2002 and 2018 across several roles, including marketing director and resales director. For the past five years she has been sales director at Bellway Homes. Caldwell will report to Shane Paull and will join on 12 June.

She will be responsible for McCarthy Stone’s group-wide sales and marketing activity and drive sales growth. This includes delivering the group’s brand strategy and progressing its move into rental and other tenures.

Tonkiss said: “It is great to secure the return of Kim and Brendon. They have a deep understanding of our business and the retirement community sector and were both strong performers when they were with us before. They bring huge experience of the housebuilding sector and will help deliver our plans to grow our business back to building and selling more than 2,000 new properties a year.”