by Eleanor Ward

Traidcraft have appointed Mags Vaughan as their new chief executive.

Becoming the first woman in the role for the pioneering fair trade retailer and development charity based in Gateshead, Mags will also head up the development charity Traidcraft Exchange, which last year supported and transformed the lives of one million people suffering, through trade.

Mags joined Traidcraft in 2004 after a successful early career in the industry of petrochemicals. She worked in strategic sales, planning and management positions with Petroplus Refining, Philips-Imperial Petroleum Ltd and ICI on Teesside, where she lives and plays an active role in the Anglican Durham Diocese.

She also has a first class honours degree in mechanical engineering and management from Imperial College, London, and a Masters in business administration awarded with distinction from Durham University.

A former operations director and business director working with strategic responsibility for developing and implementing organisational strategy, Mags has over nine years of experience with Traidcraft. She has overseen a range of significant improvements as a key member of the management team, including enhanced IT, inventory and credit control systems, improvements in margin, and the implementation of the online store and mobile platform to ensure that Traidcraft is well-equipped for the future.

Due to a growing concern about ethics in business and a realisation that she could use the skills she'd gained, and benefitted from, in an intensely corporate world to give back in a different area, Mags moved to Traidcraft.

The main aim of the organisation is to fight poverty through trade, helping and supporting people living in developing countries, to transform their lives. Traidcraft presents a Christian outlook on poverty and the effects it can have on many people across the world, campaigning for trade justice in some of the poorest countries in the world and known to have profound changes.

Mags commented: "Traidcraft is an amazing organisation, not only doing inspirational work in an increasingly competitive fair trade marketplace, but transforming lives across the world through its development work."

It was Ram Gidoomal, Traidcraft chairman, who welcomed her to the appointment, saying: "I am confident that Mags is the right person with the right experience to develop the organisation's significant potential, building on our work over more than 30 years to provide farmers, growers, and workers in the developing world with the means to fight their own way out of poverty through trade."

"I feel privileged to be chosen to establish and take forward a refreshed strategic vision that will help us take advantage of a new enthusiasm from consumers," Mags Vaughan commented in response.