After 36 years at Magic Me, Susan Langford MBE – intergenerational arts expert and our Founding Director – has announced her retirement, and will step down from her role in late Autumn 2025.
Susan’s pioneering work with cohorts of staff and artists over the years has reached thousands of participants, from primary school pupils to centenarians. Lives have been changed, relationships deepened and communities brought together through creative arts projects developed under her leadership.
Our Chair of Trustees, David Russell, says –
‘On behalf of the current and past Trustees of Magic Me, I’d like to say a huge thank you to Susan for her imaginative leadership and tireless stewardship of the organisation over the last three and a half decades. Political, financial and public health contexts have changed hugely over the years, but through it all, her unwavering belief in the creative imaginations of people of all ages and abilities has enabled an astonishing body of work to flourish. She leaves Magic Me in a robust condition, ready to take on a new generation of challenges and opportunities.’
Susan will be handing the Magic Me reins to two new Joint CEOs: Kate Hodson, our current Programme Director and Ben Butcher, current Head of Operations. They bring much experience and expertise from both within and outside Magic Me, and were appointed after a robust restructuring and recruitment process.
Susan’s impact on Magic Me and its beneficiaries has been astonishing: we all salute her vocation and her dedication. Over the next few months, we’ll look back at some of the amazing projects Susan has worked on over the decades, we’ll introduce Kate and Ben and their ideas for the future, and we’ll reveal plans for a celebratory send-off.