Long-serving chief of Yorkshire council resigns ‘to explore new opportunities’
LEEDS Council’s long-serving chief executive Tom Riordan will leave his role at the end of the year to explore new opportunities.
After 14 years at the helm of the second-biggest local authority in the country, he has decided the time is right to try fresh challenges.
He was appointed a CBE for services to local government in the 2020 New Year’s Honours.
Mr Riordan said: “After 14 of the happiest years I’ve decided that the time is right to move on. I have genuinely loved being chief executive of Leeds City Council, working with the best people in the best city.
“We’ve established a collaborative Team Leeds culture that delivers, working together with our partners to ensure we have a city that’s regenerating and growing sustainably.
“A generation of children are growing up supported by outstanding-rated services, vulnerable people are supported wherever possible and older people are helped to live independent and fulfilling lives, in a city admired for what it gets done and the way it works.”
Leeds Council leader, Coun James Lewis, said: “Tom is an outstanding chief executive and public servant who has worked tirelessly alongside senior politicians, officers and partners over many years with an unwavering determination to achieve the best for Leeds.”
In his time the council has been involved in attracting Channel 4, Burberry, the Bank of England and the UK Infrastructure Bank to the city, along with international events like the Grand Départ of the Tour de France.
Mr Riordan returned home to Yorkshire after beginning his career in Whitehall, where he specialised in environmental policy, representing the UK in international negotiations on climate change and endangered species.
A recruitment process will begin shortly to Mr Riordan’s successor.
WHEN Tom Riordan looks back on his time as chief executive of Leeds City Council, he can do so with pride.
During his 14 years there, Leeds has become a truly global city. Its potential as an economic force is now being realised. People need only look up at the Leeds skyline to see countless cranes working on new developments.
Mr Riordan deserves credit for seeing the bigger picture working in collaboration with other towns and cities across Yorkshire for the benefit of the region.
He played an important role in ensuring the doors were open to milestone events such as the Tour de France Grand Départ in 2014 and the Tour de Yorkshire that followed.
The crowning achievement of his tenure has to be bringing Channel 4 to the city. A move that established Leeds as a major player in the creative and digital industries.
Of course, it has not all been plain sailing. Mr Riordan will be the first to admit frustration at the lack of progress on a mass transit system for the city and wider region in the 14 years he has been chief executive. There was also the hammer blow of the Northern leg of HS2 being cancelled, leaving Leeds’s transport network lagging behind.
Despite this, Mr Riordan leaves the council with the city now of the same calibre as Manchester.
His departure will leave a major hole for the council to fill. With concerns around local government funding, good luck to whoever takes on the role. They will be faced with the unenviable task of managing a council that has to juggle key priorities.