Changes at ATTA

Sadly, Kate Kenward has left ATTA® to resume her work as a consultant, having successfully completed the first phase of her contracted services with ATTA®. Further plans to drive the association forward were in the pipeline, but this month the Management Board has had to make the difficult decision to scale back on expenditure due to the current uncertain financial climate, which has threatened the profitability of our exhibitions and events programme.

When we recruited Kate as Managing Director, last August, as part of ATTA®’s ongoing reorganisation programme, the pandemic appeared to be on its way out and we had every expectation that the exhibition and events sector, a vitally important source of income, would resume as normal from October 2021. Income from that sector and membership fees (well up on 2021) were budgeted to fund not only the reorganisation programme but also our essential redevelopment of the online membership management and engagement platform.

However,  even the best laid plans can go astray and the arrival of the Omicron variant, bringing with it difficult working protocols, and now the war in Eastern Europe, will undoubtedly squeeze the association’s income for this financial year.  We must carefully conserve our resources and have reluctantly put on hold many of the projects that Kate was working on whilst retaining that vital website redevelopment programme.

As our Chair John Corse says, in the press release that will be distributed tomorrow,  “ we will miss Kate’s energy and enthusiasm and wish her every success for the future”  and we all thank her for the hard work that she has put in to drive ATTA® forward.

In the meantime, Chris Mears will be picking up elements of Kate’s day to day work, supported by Angela Dizon, and will be available for any queries you may have.