CSD appoints an ‘interim manager’

The Chartered Society of Designers has appointed management consultant Bob Law as “interim manager” of its full-time executive team.

Law, who is employed as a consultant on an open-ended contract, has been briefed to review the CSD’s “managerial and business strategies”.

The executive committee has tried hard to do it, says CSD president Adrianne LeMan. “But we can’t go on trying to do that. We have our own businesses to run,” she says. Law is “picking up where we have left it and will work with us”, she adds.

According to Law, his job will also be “to keep us on the right side of the bank”, following the deal struck with NatWest by LeMan and the executive committee to write off about half of the CSD’s 700 000 debt over seven years (DW 27 June).

“The most important thing is to restore the bank’s confidence in the society and maintain (the CSD’s) credibility within the design population,” says Law

Law’s appointment is meant to fill the gap left by the absence of CSD director Brian Lymbery on extended sick leave and the departure later this month of development director Jane Clarke to set up her own sponsorship consultancy.

He will work five days a week initially and be paid an undisclosed daily rate, and envisages this arrangement continuing “at least until the new calendar year,” when his hours might be reduced.