Senior Management Board member, Richard Whitehead is appointed to the Hertfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) Board

Following an open and transparent selection process, five candidates have been selected to join LEP Board, four as business representatives and one as an SME rep.

The four other successful applicants are: Neil Rutledge, Director, Clubfinance Project Finance Ltd; Nitin Dahad, Director, TechSpark Ltd and co-founder of The Next Silicon Valley, David Conway, Managing Director, BBC Studioworks Ltd, and John Patsavellas, Manufacturing and Technical Director, Altro Ltd. Nitin Dahad will take over as SME representative.

Board Members are unremunerated and are elected to stand for a three-year period. This can be extended to a maximum of six years in order to refresh the membership of the Board on a regular basis. The Board is set at a maximum of 15 members, eight drawn from the private sector, to enable a strong team ethic, fully inclusive debate, and a capacity for rapid decisions.

Mark Bretton, Chair of Hertfordshire LEP said: “This is the biggest change in the make-up of the LEP Board since its inception in 2012 and heralds a new phase in the LEP’s evolution. In the past five years it has developed from its strategic role to include delivering the projects that it has secured funding for and that will have enormous economic impact for the county.

“Fixed terms of office means that the LEP can remain agile and responsive to the county’s challenges and opportunities and I look forward to the fresh ways of thinking our new representatives will bring.”

The decision to appoint the new LEP Board Members was formally ratified by the Board on 21 September and will come into effect on a rolling basis over the next six months as current LEP Board members’ terms of office come to an end.

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