Corporate heavy hitter called in to help plot Dartington’s future

A business restructuring expert with links to the entertainment and hospitality industries has joined the trustee board at Dartington Hall Trust, in a sign of the charity’s priorities.

David Lovett worked for more than 30 years in senior positions at Arthur Andersen and Alix Partners, two big global “restructuring” consultancies advising companies and other organisations which had hit difficulties. Lovett is “driven by a desire to minimise economic loss to stakeholders while his clients manage the turbulence of forced transformation”, according to one profile of the 75-year-old.

He is also on the boards of companies involved with TV production and food,drink and live music venues, some of which are run with his son, Ben Lovett, a keyboard player with the top-selling folk/rock band Mumford and Sons. Lovett’s appointment comes as the trust – which runs the historic Dartington estate near Totnes – emerges from a challenging period since early 2023 during which it has pushed through 160 job losses to cut costs and stave off what a new set of managers viewed as potential bankruptcy.

Lord David Triesman, the trust’s chair, has set out new guidelines for the charity under which it will back away from running its own ventures, but instead bring in commercial partners to organise operations including entertainment events involving for instance food, music and catering. From now on Dartington will act mainly as a “landlord promoting the legacy of the estate and investing surplus funds into charitable activities”, according to Triesman.

While the new thinking has attracted praise from some observers who feel the Dartington had suffered from years of drift caused by weak management and perennial financial losses, others have bemoaned what they say is a move away from the charity’s vaunted traditions, together with the ending of popular ventures such as an annual summer music school and festival.

Lovett’s recruitment comes with the disclosure that a previous trustee – Conservative peer Baroness Amanda Sater – has stepped down from her post which she had occupied for just one year, a far shorter period than the three-year term to which Dartington’s board members agree.

The changes keep the total number at the charity to four, which is one short of the five trustees stipulated in the organisation’s legal structure. The job of trustees – who are unpaid – is to set out strategy and curb conflicts of interest. Dartington Hall Trust said: “We’re pleased to have David Lovett on board. [He’s] an experienced business person; [and] the balance of our most pressing challenges remains business/financial. We’re aware of trustee quoracy [covering the required minimum numbers] and are in discussions with further new joiners.”

On Sater’s resignation the charity said: ”We’re grateful for her contribution in her time with us. She’s decided to focus on her other commitments.” Sater did not respond to a request to say why she had left.

Dartington is this year celebrating its 100th anniversary of its establishment in a modern form by the wealthy benefactors Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst who a few years later set up the trust to organise a range of activities in areas including the arts, ecology and social studies as well as run a series of businesses. Lovett’s last top corporate position was at Alix Partners, where he retired in 2011 as head of the US company’s restructuring and turnaround division for Europe and the Middle East. According to Alix’s publicity material, its senior staff work on “high-impact, exciting projects” and “combine strategic vision and real-world experience with an explicit propensity to action and unstinting focus on results”.

As for Lovett’s approach, he seems to favour moving decisively. “There is nearly always a need for more action rather than less,” according to a book on restructuring he co-wrote in 2006. The authors warn : “The low point in staff morale [at operations undergoing restructuring] may not be reached for nine or 12 months after the start point, when cost reduction and closures start to bite.”

One of the businesses that Lovett now runs alongside Ben Lovett is The Venue Group which operates music and hospitality sites in London and the US. David Lovett is also a director of Tinopolis, a TV production and distribution company. Lovett did not respond to a request to comment.

Lovett’s appointment marks the second time since Triesman took over as chair in early 2023 that the Labour peer and other trustees have called on the assistance of a restructuring specialist. David Buchler – head of the insolvency advisory firm Buchler Phillips and a longtime contact of Triesman – was enlisted soon after Triesman’s arrival to help plan the new Dartington strategy. Shortly after this Robert Fedder, a Buchler Phillips affiliate director, was installed as Dartington’s interim chief executive, a position he still holds, while Stephen Benzikie, the firm’s communications adviser became head of marketing.

Apart from Lovett and Triesman, Dartington’s other two trustees are Rachel Watson of the Riverford organic vegetable group and former management consultant Peter Goldsbrough, both of whom were appointed in 2020.