A New Hand on the Tiller
Dartington Trust has a new chair of Trustees. David Buchler, who joined the board in November, has taken over from Lord David Triesman, who has decided to resign from the role he began in Spring 2023. Lord Triesman, 82, has recently been seriously ill.
A statement on the Trust website says: “While DHT will miss David’s leadership from the Chair, the Board is grateful not to be saying goodbye. His wisdom and experience will remain available as a Trustee and now, as the Trust’s first Chair Emeritus. This honorific is a small token of DHT’s immense respect and a permanent recognition of the indelible mark he has left on Dartington.”
Commenting on the Board changes, Robert Fedder, interim CEO of DHT said: “David, on behalf of every single member of the Board and the entire Dartington Hall Trust family, thank you: for your exceptional leadership, your steadfast dedication, and your profound legacy. We look forward to continuing to benefit from your counsel and to working with David Buchler, a critical early adviser to the turnaround, as an excellent new Chair now holding the torch of recovery.”
In an interview via email with the Pulse in November last year, Lord Triesman said when he arrived and looked at the Trust’s finances, it was a “sobering experience.”
The board sought advice on insolvency from Buchler Phillips, a business turn around consultancy. Mr Buchler now has the task of continuing the turnaround of the Trust.
A year ago Lord Triesman told the Pulse: “The previous sale of so many assets, rather than making a commercial success of our activities, was a poor strategic choice. The change to a commercial culture where we didn’t rush toward insolvency by doing things that simply lost money was both a better culture and the only viable one. …when you have faced the prospect of the Administrators taking control you do try to improve everything you can. And some people won’t like it. The worst legacy I could leave would be to have arrived, found nobody at the wheel, the rocks just metres away, and not tried to do something about it.”