CITMA announces new president

The Chartered Institute of Trade Mark Attorneys (CITMA) is delighted to announce that Daniel Hardman-Smart has been elected as President of CITMA.

Hardman-Smart began his two-year term in the role on 21st April 2026 after being voted in by CITMA Council. He succeeds Kelly Saliger.

Hardman-Smart is a Chartered Trade Mark Attorney and IA Director at Stobbs, where he has been working since 2019.

The early part of Hardman-Smart’s career was as a paralegal in private practice firms before moving to a service provider, where he spent a fair bit of time out in Jersey. He then spent over four years in-house in the pharma industry in Switzerland and Germany before returning to the UK. He qualified as a Chartered Trade Mark Attorney in 2018, before joining Stobbs.

Hardman-Smart has played a big role in CITMA over the past few years. In particular, he has been instrumental in shaping the support for paralegals within the profession – he has been the lead tutor on the CITMA Paralegal Course for a number of years and has been chair of the CITMA Paralegal Committee since its inception.

Hardman-Smart was first elected onto CITMA Council in 2020 and has served as Second Vice-President/Treasurer from 2022-2024 and then First Vice-President from 2024.

Following his election, Hardman-Smart said, “When I first started in trademarks, I worked for the then-president of CITMA. One of my tasks was to take the board with all of the presidents’ names on it in a black cab from Pall Mall to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. To think now, 30 years later, that I could be on that board – I’m humbled.”

In terms of priorities for his term, Hardman-Smart said, “Our community is a strength, and I’d like to look at ways to harness and grow our community and expand on what we do already.

“We will continue to work with the UK IPO, the EUIPO, WIPO, Government, the judiciary, regulators, and our sister organizations in the measured and constructive way that has become our standard.

“Diversity is incredibly important to me – not least as one of the first, if not the first, openly gay presidents of a legal representative body in the UK. I want to expand on our work to ensure our profession is open to all.

“I am also the first CITMA president to have previously been a paralegal member. Access to our profession matters to me – whether at attorney or paralegal level, or in supporting paralegals on the pathway to becoming Chartered Trade Mark Attorneys.”

In addition to Hardman-Smart’s election, Ese Akpogheneta (BATMark) has been elected as CITMA First Vice-President and Jade MacIntyre (Lewis Silkin) as Second Vice-President/Treasurer. They will also serve for two years alongside Hardman-Smart.

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