Here’s the news from the party:
Tim Gordon brings to the role a lifetime of commitment to the Party, as a volunteer, campaigner and candidate, but also a strong commercial background and clearly demonstrated leadership qualities.
Tim Gordon has been a Party activist since his teens, when he first volunteered for the SDP “Yes to Unity” campaign, and has since campaigned in every major election. He stood as parliamentary candidate in Rotherham in 2005. He worked as a researcher for David Steel when he was Foreign Affairs spokesperson, and has been a member of several policy working groups over the years. He is currently an active member in Islington.
Tim Gordon’s professional career has been shaped in the world of strategic business management. He started at the Financial Times, before working at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and most recently as Group Development Director at European Directories, a large European media company. Through this career Tim has demonstrated strategic thinking, use of online technology to deliver change, fundraising ability, an understanding of internal organisation dynamics and experience of building alignment around common priorities.
Tim takes over from Chris Fox, who leaves us on Wednesday to take up a new role as Director of Group Communications at a FTSE100 engineering company.
During the five week interim period, the Federal Executive-appointed recruitment panel have asked Hilary Stephenson, the current Director of Elections and Skills, to serve as Acting Chief Executive. Having known Hilary for many years I know that she will very ably hold the fort for this time and I am delighted that she has agreed to take on this challenge.
Tim Farron
11 Comments
Tim seems, as one who has never met him, to be a genuine real person.
http://tim-gordon.blogspot.com/
As someone who knows Tim well, and worked with him in Islington – congratulations!
He is a genuinely nice person, and will be a very good CEO of the party.
Yes – I agree with Meral. Tim is a good friend as has been a great person to campaign with in Islington. He has a good set of progressive values, he is very genuine and it will be great to have him at the top!
I wonder what Tim will do to tackle the unnecessary London-centricity of the Federal Party organisations…
Congratulations to Chris Fox who has chosen an excellent time to jump ship.
Is this the man who is going to be in charge of the Liberal Democrat “rebrand”, as reported in the Telegraph and Guardian over the weekend? In the article I read, it was suggested we may be changing our party name as well as a full overhall of what we stand for.
And if so, how come average members/supporters have not been asked to have a say in this “rebrand”? Why are we hiring and lettting “brand experts” redefine who the Lib Dems are? Is this going to be yet another attempt by the Cleggite right of the party to do what they want without consulting us?
Why on Earth are we bringing in the ad-men and “brand experts” when we, the members, should be deciding this on a democratic basis? This reeks of just more of the Westminster-bubbled Lib Dems ignoring the rest of us who don’t live in London.
Don’t know him but I’d have to say that former candidate in Rotherham ticks as many boxes of “proper grassroots experience” as you’d care to have!
That was also one of Chris’s strong points as well – whilst you could be a good CE of the party without a record of party activity it does make it easier to have a genuine understanding of party “culture”
@Nick(not Clegg) – I’ve not agreed with everything Chris has done but its very unfair to suggest a lack of commitment to the party.
Congratulations Tim and thanks to Tony Dawson for posting the link to Tim’s blogsite.
Very interesting post from the end of 2009 including this extract:
I fear that an incoming Tory Government will want to get the pain of spending cuts and tax increases out of the way as early as possible in the electoral cycle (when it can still be blamed on Labour and giving them the chance of some years of growth prior to the next Election). At the same time Quantitative Easing will have to come to an end (free money cannot last forever). And suddenly all the various tax rises already planned will kick in (the return to the old level of VAT, the new 50p income tax band) and the property market will tank. Cue panic.
So reasonably good political antennae! (although it turns out that apparently free money can last forever!)
(And I can commend the account of climbing Mont Blanc – excellent read!)
As someone who has campaigned alongside Tim over many years I can speak highly of his grass rootedness, political acumen and boundless energy: all things he will be needing in LD HQ. He represents a generation shift and is a wise choice. The party has done very well.
Having meet Tim campaigning in the reccent St Mary’s by-election I was geniunly impressed both with him as a campaigner and with his interest in travel. We had an interesting chat about visiting Syria something we had both done.
@Simon Bamonte,
I gather from various press reports that a LibDem spokesman stated that the “rebranding exercise” was “part of the transition from being the third party”: to what, one wonders.
@Hywel,
I did not wish to imply any lack of commitment on Chris’ part, but merely to congratulate him on his timing in obtaining alternative employment.