Thursday 23 August 2012

Leadership means diversity


One of my members told me that challenging times for their organisations have meant they have been paying less attention to talent spotting, looking out for future leaders, than they used to.

It’s also been noticeable in the fewer requests we’ve had at ACEVO for job swaps or shadowing placements with our members.

For those who do want to follow up on this , ACEVO has always had a broad offering on this front so get in touch with ACEVO Directorjenny.berry@acevo.org.uk.

As I stressed when it was published, last year’s Pay Survey once again revealed disturbing results about diversity in our leadership. An expert in this area is the sector leading headhunter David Fielding who will be writing a piece on the subject in the next edition of Network, mailed out to members next month.

ACEVO is leading on the recommendations from the Leadership 20:20 Commission (chaired by Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson) on this important issue.Our role is “redressing the inequalities in Civil Society leadership through opening up effective pathways”.

The Leadership 20:20 Commission recognises that diversity in its broadest sense continues to be under-represented in civil society leaders - most starkly at Chief Executive and Trustee level. And as the sector that promotes social justice we surely have a responsibility to promote equality of opportunity for all?

We are pulling together partners to work on this with us and opening up our "Emerging Leaders" programme to a wider audience as a start to this work.


ACEVO has a Black and Asian Leadership Special interest group and they are doing some research into diversity ( focused on Black and Asian Leaders. ) Their research will help us to establish solutions to encourage the recruitment and support of a more diverse leadership across the sector. Get involved by taking part here

I’m also about to launch our Silver Jubilee Fellows Award. The awards will be presented by that brilliant paralympian Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson at our Annual Conference Dinner on 28 November.

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