Pinsent Masons has announced the promotion of 29 individuals to its partnership – its largest round in recent years.

The Birmingham based new partner promotions include; Didar Dhillon (infrastructure), Gayle Ditchburn (universities and higher education), Sean Elson (regulatory), Clare Francis (commercial) and Nicole Livesey (corporate).

Pinsent Masons’ Birmingham head of office Greg Lowson said: “We are pleased to announce our latest round of promotions in the Birmingham office.

“The promotions are a real testament to the strength of the talent in our office and all of our successful candidates should be extremely proud of their achievement.”

Five promotions come from outside the UK, with lawyers in the firm’s Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore offices will be made up – while the firm is also making its first partner promotion in Munich since launching in Germany in 2012.

A significant proportion of those promoted specialise in the fields of energy, financial services, infrastructure and advanced manufacturing and technology.

This is the first round of promotions since Pinsent Masons launched Project Sky, a programme aimed at achieving an improved gender balance in the firm’s partnership and senior leadership team, last year.

An initial milestone was set of achieving 25 per cent representation in the partnership by 2018.

As a result of this year’s promotions round it is anticipated the overall female partner percentage will increase to 22 per cent.

It will also take the total number of partners at Pinsent Masons to over 400.

David Ryan, managing partner of Pinsent Masons, said: “I am absolutely delighted that we have been able to help such a significant number of our people achieve their partnership ambitions this year.

“All of those being promoted have made a significant contribution to growing our business this year and should be very proud of that.

“That over a third of those promoted are female also highlights the progress we are making in addressing some of the challenges around gender diversity that exist within our business and the profession generally, albeit we accept there remains much more to be achieved.”