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Beard leaves Macmillan for consultancy

Fundraising | Gemma Ware | 1 Jul 2007

Judy Beard, director of fundraising and communications at Macmillan Cancer Support, has left the charity to head up an international expansion at training and management consultancy The Management Centre.

Beard (pictured) leaves the charity after nine years and said her departure was "an emotional one". She spent five months at the start of this year as Macmillan's acting chief executive after the departure of its chief executive, Peter Cardy. However, Beard was not chosen to continue the chief executive role, losing out to a sector newcomer, Ciaran Devane, a former management consultant.

After Beard's departure, her role at Macmillan will be split in two. Amanda Bringans, deputy director of fundraising who oversaw the charity's rebrand in 2005, will take on the role of director of fundraising, while the existing directors of communications Hilary Cross and Lynda Thomas become joint directors of external affairs.

In her new role Beard will oversee the development of the management consultancy arm of The Management Centre as the company looks to branch out internationally. This year it has already opened offices in the USA and Australia, with one in Brazil opening in October and another in Mexico in January 2008. Beard's first projects will include work with an international NGO that wants to devolve decision-making powers to local areas and a Scottish charity that wants to develop its major gift fundraising.

Beard said she had worked with The Management Centre in several client relationships and now wanted to "share my experience to help a wide range of organisations at strategic management levels".

Bernard Ross, joint managing director of The Management Centre, said: "Judy has incredible strengths in managing and driving big change processes and development at the very highest level. It's not often this scale of talent becomes available and we consider it a coup to welcome Judy to our team."

Beard worked for a number of grassroots organisations in Camberwell during the 1970s before joining the UK department of Save the Children. She moved into the fundraising team in 1986 and then onto the British Red Cross in 1991 as its head of fundraising. She then moved across into the art world, taking on the post of development director at the Tate Gallery in 1997, but joined Macmillan a year later as its director of fundraising.

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