Design Council appoints Martin Darbyshire as trustee

12 Nov 2015

Design Council welcomes seven new trustees to its board. This includes the renowned product and industrial designers Martin Darbyshire (tangerine) and Paul Priestman (PriestmanGoode) alongside respected design educators, professors Anne Boddington (University of Brighton) and Dale Harrow (Royal College of Art). We also welcome built environment visionary Tim Stonor (Space Syntax) alongside public sector expert Kieron Boyle (Cabinet Office) and early-stage technology company mentor and investor, Dr Andrew Mackintosh.

Martin Darbyshire has been inspiring ground breaking innovation and forward thinking design since he started tangerine in 1989. Martin led the team that developed the world’s first lie-flat Business Class bed for British Airways and a host of other global successes.  He is a regular speaker on innovation and design on the international stage and a juror for the renowned Red Dot awards. His experience will add to the board’s breadth of industry skills and growing community of industry experts, bringing together unsurpassed experience and know-how across the design and built environment spheres. The board of trustees ensures that Design Council is a well-governed charity and helps to support it in becoming a world-class, self-sustaining and enterprising charity that improves peoples’ lives through good design.

Chair of Design Council, Martin Temple, says:

I am delighted to welcome these seven new trustees to the board. They will significantly boost the board’s expertise in helping to guide and develop the Design Council’s work supporting business and entrepreneurs, transforming public services, enhancing places and cities and campaigning to raise awareness of the value of design. In challenging economic circumstances the board is helping to shape the Design Council of the future to ensure it continues to evolve and adapt to meet the needs of a rapidly changing world.

John Mathers, CEO, Design Council, says:

With our new research showing the huge value (£72billion) that design adds to the economy there is no better time to strengthen our board and demonstrate design’s transformative power in boosting productivity and exports, improving places and building skills. I’m delighted to welcome such talented and passionate individuals onto our board of trustees. They bring a fresh perspective to our work in particular our activities helping entrepreneurs to bring commercial products to market, giving design students a competitive edge through our Design Academy and in supporting local authorities and cities to create better quality, prosperous places.