Chief Executive Officer of Mushrif Trading and Contracting, a listed construction company based in Kuwait with operations throughout the Gulf Cooperation Council (“GCC”). Board Member of O3B Satellites Ltd, a private equity owned satellite company providing broadband satellite services to emerging markets. Chief Restructuring Officer of Vion Foods, a €10 billion food processing company based in the Netherlands with operations around the globe. Chief Financial Officer of Schefenacker PLC, a $1.2 billion European Tier 1 auto supplier based near Stutgart, Germany. Executive Chairman of Viking Mooring, a marine engineering company which provided technical mooring services and equipment to the offshore drilling industry. Chief Restructuring Officer of Bluewater Energy Services, one of the world’s largest owners and operators of floating production, storage and offloading vessels. 
Chief Restructuring Officer of Fitness First Ltd., the world’s largest fitness club company with operations in the UK, Germany, Asia and Australia. He is an American and British citizen and has resided in the UK since 2003.Ī selection of Donald’s enagement experience includes: In 2010, he was included in Private Equity News’ list of top restructuring advisors in Europe, and is co-author of The Stress Test Every Business Needs, a book on turnaround, restructuring and capital transformation. He has extensive experience in developing business plans, working with management teams to implement operational turnaround measures, managing complex stakeholder groups, and negotiating restructuring agreements.ĭonald has served as Chief Executive, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Restructuring Officer, and board member in numerous companies faced with a combination of financial and operational challenges.ĭonald is a Fellow of the U.K.’s Institute for Turnaround and is a regular speaker at the London School of Business on restructuring matters. Previously he served as the leader of a Big Four restructuring practice in Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa, and as the EMEA Head of Turnaround and Restructuring for global restructuring advisory firm based in London.ĭonald has worked with a large number of private and public companies across a wide variety of industries including energy, construction, manufacturing, retail and shipping. UPDATE: Reader Scott Valla suggests: “Everyone please stand in your yard on one leg for a moment of silence.Prior to joining Ankura, he was a Managing Director and Partner with a management consulting firm in London. (The photo above shows two of the flamingos Don donated to the Improbable Research museum.) Please think of Don, and raise a smile, whenever you see a flamingo, be it plastic or of some less physically durable species. In 2012, Abigail Tucker wrote a history of the flamingo’s effect on the world, in Smithsonian magazine, with the headline “ The Tacky History of the Pink Flamingo.” It was “goofiest” and “tackiest” by Don’s own reckoning - he was a richly talented artist, but felt that, given the fame and financial security the flamingo brought him, he ought to publicly act as if he were interested only in making happy goofy, plastic art. One of those businesses produced this tribute/promotional video, in 2008:ĭon Featherstone was a happy, kind, and thoughtfully imaginative man, who became famous for his goofiest, tackiest creation. 
The flamingos also inspired the birth of several businesses that supply flamingoes en mass, as surprise visitors to the lawn of a beloved or despised neighbor. The flamingos inspired the film that launched John Waters‘s directorial career: Pink Flamingos.
#Don featherstone movie
In 2011, the flamingo attained new heights, when the Disney movie Gnomeo and Juliet featured a plastic pink lawn ornament named “Featherstone”. Don and Nancy were feted at the film’s premiere. After Don retired, dire things were done, by his successor, to the flamingo, triggering a worldwide protest, which eventually led to a more or less happy rallying of the forces of Good, and a restoration of the plastic pink flamingo’s status. The flamingo was one of his earliest efforts for the factory.Įventually he became president of the company. One of his first assignments was to create three-dimensional plastic lawn ornaments (up to that time, most plastic lawn ornaments were more or less flat). This photo shows Don and Nancy (who, every day of their marriage, wore matching outfits designed by Nancy) at the last of Don’s many happy returns, in 2012:ĭon created the flamingo when he was freshly graduated from art school, and newly employed at a plastics factory. He was a friend, whom we have known since 1996, the year he was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for art.ĭon and his wife, Nancy Featherstone, came to almost every Ig Nobel Prize ceremony in succeeding years, where adoring throngs cheered them and the plastic pink flamingos.
Don Featherstone, the creator of the plastic pink flamingo, died this morning.
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