Changes to the PLAIN Board: Warm welcomes and fond farewells

We are thrilled to welcome two new members to our Board of Directors who bring a diverse background and past experience at PLAIN.
Joanna Richardson was elected as the new President of PLAIN at the AGM on November 22, 2022. She takes over from Margrethe Kvarenes, who has steered the association since 2018.
Joanna is based in Argentina and is an ideal choice to represent PLAIN in 2023, as our bi-annual conference is taking place in Buenos Aires this year. For nearly 2 decades, Joanna taught plain English at Argentina’s leading law firm. She now works freelance training professionals worldwide in clear communications skills. A long standing member of both Clarity and PLAIN, Joanna served on the board of PLAIN from 2012-2018, first in Communications and for her last year of service as President of PLAIN. She also serves on the Observatorio de Lenguaje Claro de la Facultad de Derecho.

Torunn Reksten will serve as Vice President. She is a plain language expert at the Language Council of Norway. As a plain language advocate, lecturer, editor and author since 2008, she has played a central part in building plain language awareness and competence. This initiative has set a new standard for public communication in Norway. Torunn represents the Norwegian standardization body to ISO 24995—Plain Language and serves on the Drafting Committee of ISO Working Group 11 for the standard. Torunn is passionate about innovation, service design and good user experience.

We say farewell and sincere thanks to Margrethe Kvarenes and Hannah Sapunor-Davis. As President, Margrethe has made considerable progress in expanding PLAIN’s reach beyond the English speaking world.
Hannah has served as Communications Director since 2019 and played a crucial role in modernizing PLAIN’s communications and shaping the role and the communication division.