Ian Smith and Dave Arrowsmith
QED has announced the planned retirement of its owners David Arrowsmith and Ian Smith who set up the business in 1997.
Whilst the owners will retire with effect from 30 June 2021, they will retain ownership of the company. The retirement from the day-to-day operations marks the commencement of a planned succession, which will see QED’s current MD, Matt Philp taking overall operational and management responsibilities.
As part of this restructure, the new strategic team will include Ian Garden, Sales Manager; Catherine Seddon, Marketing Manager; Andrew Judge, Finance Manager; Hannah Whittle, Operations Manager and Steve Constantine, Product Development Director.
This team will allow QED to be more agile, whilst focusing on the most important areas of strategy and operational delivery.
The coming weeks and months will also see further changes to structures and positions throughout the company as QED looks to position itself as strongly as possible for the future.
A statement from David Arrowsmith and Ian Smith says: “In the last 20-plus years we have seen the business grow from strength to strength, weathering some difficult times and we have never been so grateful to our team who, responding to the recent unprecedented events, transformed and changed our company in just a few months to meet the challenges we all faced. Our colleagues adapted, changed and moved mountains and we will be forever grateful.
“We believe that QED’s overall strategy remains even more relevant now than ever before and will provide clear focus and direction for the years to come. We have also learned over the past five months that certain elements of the strategy will now need to be delivered much more rapidly than originally envisaged, including the review of our structure, along with accelerating our plans for the future running of the business. I’m delighted that we have been able to appoint Matt Philp to the role of MD, who alongside the new strategic team will lead QED into a new era.
“Thank you to all of our loyal customers and suppliers for their continued help and support as we continue to secure a long-lasting and sustainable future for QED.”
