Rob Firth leaves as architect restructures senior team

Architect HOK has cut a director post resulting in the departure of director of practice building Rob Firth.

The firm has now moved from having six people at director level to only having five.

Firth had been responsible for positioning the firm in the market and bringing in new leads for work.

Andrew Barraclough, director of HOK, said that the duties held by Firth were now dispersed among the other directors.

He added: “Rob’s role was no longer considered necessary. With the other directors we didn’t feel it was necessary to have a single individual devoting his time to practice building.”

“We have done a reorganisation of the senior leadership team at director level, fundamentally, to be more efficient in organising our projects,” he said.

Barraclough said the decision to cut a director post was not linked to the performance of the firm, which he said had had “a great year”.

In its last accounts, for the year to 31 December 2011, HOK International reported a profit of £1.1m and a 16% rise in revenue over the previous year.