As of April I am now head of both the design department and the product development department. This means that I now have 55 staff under me who are divided into 9 teams:

• Product designers
• Graphic designers
• Sculptors
• Digital sculptors
• Industrial engineers
• Tool makers
• Model makers
• Research and development
• Packaging designers

I now control all new product from brief to factory. It’s going to be very challenging getting my head around it all. The product development department is in desperate need of some project management structure. Plus all the industrial engineers resigned under the previous department head so I will need to hire and train a new team urgently as they are the key link between design and the factory. There is a company priority to bring all the launch dates together into 2 seasonal launches which effectively means churning out two seasons worth of product designs, samples and trial runs in just 6 months. So I really have my work cut out for me. I also just became a father so I’m not getting much sleep either!

I am proud that the MD of the company has the confidence in me to undertake this. But it’s going to be tough, and I hope to write next about how I successfully navigated these challenges.