Ireland’s oldest and largest association of design professionals, the Institute of Designers in Ireland (IDI) has appointed former Dynamo agency director Charlotte Barker as its inaugural chief executive. To date, IDI has been volunteer-led and run by design professionals across various design disciplines such as architecture, interior, strategic and product design.
Up to now, board member also gave their time voluntarily to IDI initiatives. Barker says that with design being an integral element of business innovation, coupled with a continually evolving technological design landscape, IDI has recognised the need for leadership to take hold of the opportunities for the design industry and push the body forward.
Barker has 20 years of working in strategic leadership roles in creative agencies in Ireland and overseas. Having spent the past 11 years in top branding agency Dynamo, she recently stepped off the board of the Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland (IAPI) where she led on diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives to the betterment of the industry.
Winner
She also won the 2017 IAPI Doyenne Award for women in leadership.
Barkers said she was “thrilled” to take up and shape the new IDI role. She will work with the board to agree on a framework strategy. IDI president and founder of KLD, Róisín Lafferty said that as design disciplines have grown and morphed, never before has a focus on growth been more important and that strategy starts with the institute itself.
