Allan Leighton – the ideal non-executive champion of design

Last week, you broached the subject of bringing in people from outside the design industry as a non-executive director, and who to appoint (Voxpop, DW 11 February).

My view is that the design community needs to get commercial, to respond to the challenges of the current economic environment and to start thinking about the impact design can have on a client’s business.

My choice would be Allan Leighton, the former marketing director at supermarket chain Asda and non-executive chairman of Royal Mail.

He is a proven entrepreneur and agent of change, who has very successfully ’gone plural’ with lots of fingers in many different pies, he is involved with some of the UK’s most ambitious businesses and he has a brilliant grasp of marketing and branding.

He is surely is the perfect advocate to inject some reality into the world of design and help to champion its role in assisting businesses to grow with style.

Richard Sunderland, Managing director, Heavenly Group, by e-mail