Should our management agreement name our specific manager?

You can ask, and more Boards get it than expect to. The usual answer is that staffing is the company's prerogative, which is a real position — people leave, get promoted, and go on leave, and no firm will guarantee an individual for three years.

The workable middle ground is a notice-and-consultation clause. The named manager is identified in the agreement; the company may reassign, but must give the Board written notice a stated number of days before, and must offer a replacement of comparable credentials with an introduction meeting. Some Boards add that an unagreed reassignment inside the first year is grounds for termination without penalty.

That gets you the thing you actually want, which is not the individual — it is not being reassigned to whoever has capacity, on a Friday, with no conversation.

Ask for the company's twelve-month manager turnover figure at the same time. A firm that will name your manager but turns over forty percent of its managers annually has given you a name, not continuity.