Last month's speaker an artisan (9)
I believe the answer is:
decorator
'an artisan' is the definition.
(I know that decorator is a type of Artisan)
'last month's speaker' is the wordplay.
'last month' becomes 'dec' (short for December, last month of the year).
'speaker' becomes 'orator' (orator is a kind of speaker).
'dec'+'orator'='DECORATOR'
(Other definitions for decorator that I've seen before include "Who paints" , "House painter" , "Artisan" , "Worker embellishing a property" , "Painter perhaps" .)