SHAUN Ormrod is going to have to pull something pretty spectacular out of the bag if he is going to turn Havelock Europa’s fortunes around.
Having faltered when a bank believed to be Lloyds pulled £20 million worth of business back in 2015, the firm has been fighting to recover ever since.
Now David Ritchie - who moved up from chief operating officer to chief executive just as the banking work dried up - has fallen on his sword, the firm is preparing for a fresh start.
The problem is, with profits tumbling while debts are rising, the options open to Mr Ormrod will be limited in the short term at least.
Chairman Ian Godden has hinted that the business wants to capitalise on Mr Ormrod’s background in interior design and, with investment in its Fife manufacturing plant also on his wishlist, it is possible that the firm could be looking to expand its product offering at the same time as its sectoral reach.
More probably Havelock will simply be hoping that Mr Ormrod can live up to his LinkedIn claim that he has “a proven ability to turn loss-making business profitable”.
Either way, Mr Ormrod will be unveiled to the company’s shareholders at the end of October, when the results of a six-month strategic review will also be revealed.
That gives him just over a month to think about how he is going to make his mark.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here