After developing a cultural plan for one of the world's most important cities, it would be tempting to sit back and do something a bit less challenging.
And initially this is what Rosy Greenlees did after finishing the Mayor of London's cultural strategy, when she became the head of a consortium of higher education bodies in 2004.
But it was not long before she jumped back into the frying pan as the executive director of the Crafts Council, which was in a bit of a mess when she joined in mid-2006.
At the time, the national development agency for contemporary craft was reeling following a series of high-profile departures. Most noteworthy were Nicholas Goodison, who retired after eight years as chairman, and Louise Taylor, the director, who had been with the organisation for nine years.
All this was mixed up with the council's decision to close the shop and gallery at its headquarters in Islington in north London. This sent the crafts community potty, with more than 60 senior figures from the sector sending a letter to the Guardian newspaper, criticising the plans because of a lack of consultation.
Greenlees seems keen not to dwell too long on this troubled period: "Going through change is difficult for any organisation. At that stage people's roles were changing and the Crafts Council was trying to think about what it needed to be doing. We are coming out of that now."
The closure of the shop and gallery in 2006 was part of a strategy to divert more resources to developing partnerships and working in the regions.
"When I joined, the exhibition space and shop were coming to an end, and the rationale behind that was asking: 'If we are a national organisation, how can we make sure we have more impact - how can you be national when you are effectively a building-based organisation in London?'"
The people who wrote to the Guardian were concerned about a number of areas, including the future of the Crafts Council's reference library, collection and magazine. But most troubling of all, they said, was the closure of the gallery and the loss of the council's public face.
"Understandably, not everybody agreed with the decision to close the gallery, but my argument has always been that if you want to have impact, like the relationship we now have with the V&A for example, we could not have put the resources into that if we still had the gallery."
Working with the V&A
The Crafts Council's work is now very closely tied up with the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and this month sees the opening of Collect, the international art fair for contemporary objects.
It is now in its fifth year and is held at the V&A, where more than 400 international artists from 16 countries will be represented. This year the council has teamed up with the Art Fund for a £50,000 initiative that will allow a small number of museum curators to jump the queue ahead of private collectors and cherry-pick works during a special preview.
The council also works with the V&A on exhibitions in a collaboration that will develop a range of activities to bring contemporary craft to a wider audience.
The first of these is Out of the Ordinary, which opened at the V&A's new space for contemporary exhibitions in November. It runs until mid-February and features eight artists who place craftsmanship at the centre of their work.
"I think partnership is the way of the world these days and everyone recognises the need to create alliances and relationships where you can both extend your reach," Greenlees says.
"And for me it is about the positioning of craft and the Crafts Council. By working with the V&A we are clearly making a statement that we think we need to be working with a major institution."
The council's other major annual selling event is Origin, which has been running for two years as a replacement to the Chelsea Crafts Fair and is for UK makers.
The concerns about partnerships are that they lead to a loss of independence for the council and reduce its profile. But Greenlees is unapologetic.
"Obviously it is important for an organisation to have a profile, but as far as I'm concerned the profile should be for the sector as a whole, and I feel we have achieved much higher profile for craft through Out of the Ordinary than we could have achieved by having the show here."
A broad range of activities
Despite this, there are still many in the sector who bemoan the lack of a publicly funded exhibition space for crafts in London. But many of the other concerns in 2006 seem to have been unjustified.
The council's magazine, Crafts, was relaunched in November 2006, and its reference library reopened this month in its London headquarters, albeit on an appointment-only basis.
Greenlees says the organisation will continue to add to its collection, which now features more than 1,500 items. The works are available through loans, touring exhibitions to museums and galleries, and the Making It Yours initiative, which takes objects to secondary schools.
So how does the crafts community feel Greenlees has been getting on? One senior figure says: "She is highly capable, serious and doing a difficult job pretty well. It is fair to say the Crafts Council was looking over the edge of a precipice when she joined."
The source points to Origin and Art Fund Collect as positive developments, but says there needs to be more evidence of regional partnerships and a better balance between activities and strategy, as there is too much emphasis on the latter.
Ironically, being more involved in the creative side is one of the things that Greenlees enjoys about her role. She spent the first 15 years of her career working in independent arts centres and local authority galleries as a curator and public art manager, but drifted into the more strategic side of the arts. This culminated in 2004 when she got the chance to develop a cultural strategy for the Mayor of London.
"I suppose what attracted to me to the Crafts Council was that I have always enjoyed craft, and I'd reached the point where I had a level of management and strategic skills, but actually I quite liked the idea of doing something that was much more engaged in the creative process. So for me this was a fantastic opportunity because I get to do both."
The challenge for Greenlees is to further raise the profile of crafts and strengthen its links with other disciplines, such as art and architecture.
Areas being looked at include the relaunch of the Crafts Council website to become more a portal for people to find out about all areas of craft. And education will be important as there are worries about where the next generation of makers are going to come from.
"One of the big issues is that teachers are often not necessarily confident teaching crafts in the way they would have been," says Greenlees. "In my generation there was always clay and stuff like that around - it was a natural thing that you would do. Now people go to the computer and it will be about graphics."
But Greenlees is still optimistic, and feels there is a growing interest in materials and how they can be used.
"For a long period of time, object-based activity was not where it was at, but now it is becoming more so. We need to seize the moment in a sense. Maybe our time has come."
Rosy Greenlees at a glance
Greenlees spent the first 15 years of her career working in independent arts centres and local authority galleries as a curator and public art manager. She then became the director of Visual and Media Art and then the deputy chief executive at Eastern Arts Board.
In 2004 she moved to the Greater London Authority to lead the development of the mayor's cultural strategy.
Greenlees joined the Crafts Council in March 2006 following her role as the director of the London Centre for Arts and Cultural Enterprise, a collaboration of seven Higher Education Institutions that develop partnerships and exchanges of research and expertise with the cultural sector.
And initially this is what Rosy Greenlees did after finishing the Mayor of London's cultural strategy, when she became the head of a consortium of higher education bodies in 2004.
But it was not long before she jumped back into the frying pan as the executive director of the Crafts Council, which was in a bit of a mess when she joined in mid-2006.
At the time, the national development agency for contemporary craft was reeling following a series of high-profile departures. Most noteworthy were Nicholas Goodison, who retired after eight years as chairman, and Louise Taylor, the director, who had been with the organisation for nine years.
All this was mixed up with the council's decision to close the shop and gallery at its headquarters in Islington in north London. This sent the crafts community potty, with more than 60 senior figures from the sector sending a letter to the Guardian newspaper, criticising the plans because of a lack of consultation.
Greenlees seems keen not to dwell too long on this troubled period: "Going through change is difficult for any organisation. At that stage people's roles were changing and the Crafts Council was trying to think about what it needed to be doing. We are coming out of that now."
The closure of the shop and gallery in 2006 was part of a strategy to divert more resources to developing partnerships and working in the regions.
"When I joined, the exhibition space and shop were coming to an end, and the rationale behind that was asking: 'If we are a national organisation, how can we make sure we have more impact - how can you be national when you are effectively a building-based organisation in London?'"
The people who wrote to the Guardian were concerned about a number of areas, including the future of the Crafts Council's reference library, collection and magazine. But most troubling of all, they said, was the closure of the gallery and the loss of the council's public face.
"Understandably, not everybody agreed with the decision to close the gallery, but my argument has always been that if you want to have impact, like the relationship we now have with the V&A for example, we could not have put the resources into that if we still had the gallery."
Working with the V&A
The Crafts Council's work is now very closely tied up with the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and this month sees the opening of Collect, the international art fair for contemporary objects.
It is now in its fifth year and is held at the V&A, where more than 400 international artists from 16 countries will be represented. This year the council has teamed up with the Art Fund for a £50,000 initiative that will allow a small number of museum curators to jump the queue ahead of private collectors and cherry-pick works during a special preview.
The council also works with the V&A on exhibitions in a collaboration that will develop a range of activities to bring contemporary craft to a wider audience.
The first of these is Out of the Ordinary, which opened at the V&A's new space for contemporary exhibitions in November. It runs until mid-February and features eight artists who place craftsmanship at the centre of their work.
"I think partnership is the way of the world these days and everyone recognises the need to create alliances and relationships where you can both extend your reach," Greenlees says.
"And for me it is about the positioning of craft and the Crafts Council. By working with the V&A we are clearly making a statement that we think we need to be working with a major institution."
The council's other major annual selling event is Origin, which has been running for two years as a replacement to the Chelsea Crafts Fair and is for UK makers.
The concerns about partnerships are that they lead to a loss of independence for the council and reduce its profile. But Greenlees is unapologetic.
"Obviously it is important for an organisation to have a profile, but as far as I'm concerned the profile should be for the sector as a whole, and I feel we have achieved much higher profile for craft through Out of the Ordinary than we could have achieved by having the show here."
A broad range of activities
Despite this, there are still many in the sector who bemoan the lack of a publicly funded exhibition space for crafts in London. But many of the other concerns in 2006 seem to have been unjustified.
The council's magazine, Crafts, was relaunched in November 2006, and its reference library reopened this month in its London headquarters, albeit on an appointment-only basis.
Greenlees says the organisation will continue to add to its collection, which now features more than 1,500 items. The works are available through loans, touring exhibitions to museums and galleries, and the Making It Yours initiative, which takes objects to secondary schools.
So how does the crafts community feel Greenlees has been getting on? One senior figure says: "She is highly capable, serious and doing a difficult job pretty well. It is fair to say the Crafts Council was looking over the edge of a precipice when she joined."
The source points to Origin and Art Fund Collect as positive developments, but says there needs to be more evidence of regional partnerships and a better balance between activities and strategy, as there is too much emphasis on the latter.
Ironically, being more involved in the creative side is one of the things that Greenlees enjoys about her role. She spent the first 15 years of her career working in independent arts centres and local authority galleries as a curator and public art manager, but drifted into the more strategic side of the arts. This culminated in 2004 when she got the chance to develop a cultural strategy for the Mayor of London.
"I suppose what attracted to me to the Crafts Council was that I have always enjoyed craft, and I'd reached the point where I had a level of management and strategic skills, but actually I quite liked the idea of doing something that was much more engaged in the creative process. So for me this was a fantastic opportunity because I get to do both."
The challenge for Greenlees is to further raise the profile of crafts and strengthen its links with other disciplines, such as art and architecture.
Areas being looked at include the relaunch of the Crafts Council website to become more a portal for people to find out about all areas of craft. And education will be important as there are worries about where the next generation of makers are going to come from.
"One of the big issues is that teachers are often not necessarily confident teaching crafts in the way they would have been," says Greenlees. "In my generation there was always clay and stuff like that around - it was a natural thing that you would do. Now people go to the computer and it will be about graphics."
But Greenlees is still optimistic, and feels there is a growing interest in materials and how they can be used.
"For a long period of time, object-based activity was not where it was at, but now it is becoming more so. We need to seize the moment in a sense. Maybe our time has come."
Rosy Greenlees at a glance
Greenlees spent the first 15 years of her career working in independent arts centres and local authority galleries as a curator and public art manager. She then became the director of Visual and Media Art and then the deputy chief executive at Eastern Arts Board.
In 2004 she moved to the Greater London Authority to lead the development of the mayor's cultural strategy.
Greenlees joined the Crafts Council in March 2006 following her role as the director of the London Centre for Arts and Cultural Enterprise, a collaboration of seven Higher Education Institutions that develop partnerships and exchanges of research and expertise with the cultural sector.