Plus ca change….

By 5th February 2018Cairn News

C’est plus la meme chose! So yes, we’ve been changing a few things around at Cairn, but that doesn’t mean that things will look very different to you. Rather, it is a natural progression that has happened once before already, when Martin our founder formally handed over the running of our plucky enterprise to Jez Graham a decade or so ago. In practice this was just an acknowledgment of the situation at that time, since following the acquisition of our terrific farm just after the turn of the century, Martin had his hands full with making the farmhouse and the old farm buildings suitable for their respective personal and business habitations, plus looking after a variety of other farm matters, which meant that Jez had already been running the show on a day-to-day basis for several years. He therefore formally became Managing Director, and Martin restyled himself as President.

But as well as carrying out those responsibilities, Jez has also been very busy working on the development of new commercial opportunities for Cairn, and on furthering relations with the leading academic researchers that are particularly important to our business, so he too has been becoming more than a little stretched, with Edward and Linda giving him an increasing hand in recent years. So now it is their turn to (jointly) occupy the hot seat, and so it should be Jez’s turn to become our President. However, for some unaccountable reason, that title doesn’t seem to be quite as popular as it used to, so he has opted for the alternative one of CEO (for Chief Executive Officer). This new role will give him more time to do all these other things, that he really does do rather well, as the size of his Skype bill so clearly shows. Edward will now concentrate mainly on the internal (production) aspects of the old Managing Director role, and Linda more on the external (sales) ones, with them sharing the new title of COO (for Chief Operating Officer). There will be plenty for both of them to do!

But what about Martin’s new position? Well, we gave him a kettle and a box of teabags, and when he asked “Is that all?”, we took pity and gave him a dustpan and brush as well. He has also been offered a nice smart uniform to wear while he stands around at the entrance all day, but somehow we don’t think even that will be quite enough for him. There’s just no pleasing some people! Instead he seems determined to continue his product development role, and to help our Marketing Director James Kerin and his now permanent assistant Ellie-May Pearce to further strengthen our online presence (and indeed he is making a pathetic attempt to do so now by writing this piece of corporate propaganda). Martin will now have the formal title of Chairman, if only because that’s what he actually is. He also remains particularly involved in the strategic aspects of the business, as he is especially proud of our collectively being able to keep Cairn profitable and fully independent ever since its inception, and he is determined to keep things this way. And in any case, there’s no selling up for us, so will all those strange people who keep writing to offer to help “release the value of our business” (we returned yet another one this morning) please just leave us alone? Thank you!

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