Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Ep 7. Sophie Livingstone MBE, Managing Director, Trustees Unlimited: Making Governance sexy!
66 Plays4 years ago
“Your job as a Trustee is to be a custodian of the higher purpose of the mission and vision of the organisation.”
‘Sexy’ is not normally a word one associates with charity governance. This conversation is about how the function of governance can be truly inspirational and what organisations can do to attract more diverse talent to their Trustee Boards.
My guest Sophie Livingstone has extensive experience on both sides of the charity boardroom table. Over the past 20 years she has served on Boards of numerous organisations and was the founding CEO of City Year UK. Sophie was recently recognised with an MBE for ‘services to charity’ in the 2020 Queen’s Birthday Honours.
In this episode we highlight the importance of representation and role models in leadership. Sophie talks about the development of an ‘Inspire List’; a list curated to celebrate and showcase Trustees of diverse backgrounds and from different walks of life. We also discuss the dynamics of power in Boardrooms and different structures for effective governance.
Recorded October 2020, via Zoom.
Guest Biography
Sophie is currently Managing Director of Trustees Unlimited. Over 20 years she has served in a number of governance positions: as Chair of Little Village, Co-Chair and Co-Founder of Generation Change, Trustee of the Royal Voluntary Service, Trustee of Street Kids International UK, Trustee of Rural India School Enterprise (RISE) and Chair of Governors of John Milton Primary School. She is the founding CEO of City Year UK, a charity enabling young people to tackle inequality through doing a year of voluntary service in schools.
Sophie sees herself as a social entrepreneur, passionate about collaborating with others to address social injustice. She was awarded an MBE for ‘services to charity’ in the 2020 Queen’s Birthday Honours.
Links
www.trustees-unlimited.co.uk
www.trustees-unlimited.co.uk/the-inspire-list
www.girldreamer.co.uk
‘Sexy’ is not normally a word one associates with charity governance. This conversation is about how the function of governance can be truly inspirational and what organisations can do to attract more diverse talent to their Trustee Boards.
My guest Sophie Livingstone has extensive experience on both sides of the charity boardroom table. Over the past 20 years she has served on Boards of numerous organisations and was the founding CEO of City Year UK. Sophie was recently recognised with an MBE for ‘services to charity’ in the 2020 Queen’s Birthday Honours.
In this episode we highlight the importance of representation and role models in leadership. Sophie talks about the development of an ‘Inspire List’; a list curated to celebrate and showcase Trustees of diverse backgrounds and from different walks of life. We also discuss the dynamics of power in Boardrooms and different structures for effective governance.
Recorded October 2020, via Zoom.
Guest Biography
Sophie is currently Managing Director of Trustees Unlimited. Over 20 years she has served in a number of governance positions: as Chair of Little Village, Co-Chair and Co-Founder of Generation Change, Trustee of the Royal Voluntary Service, Trustee of Street Kids International UK, Trustee of Rural India School Enterprise (RISE) and Chair of Governors of John Milton Primary School. She is the founding CEO of City Year UK, a charity enabling young people to tackle inequality through doing a year of voluntary service in schools.
Sophie sees herself as a social entrepreneur, passionate about collaborating with others to address social injustice. She was awarded an MBE for ‘services to charity’ in the 2020 Queen’s Birthday Honours.
Links
www.trustees-unlimited.co.uk
www.trustees-unlimited.co.uk/the-inspire-list
www.girldreamer.co.uk
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Charity CEO Podcast
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Charity CEO Podcast, the podcast for charity leaders by charity leaders, with candid, meaningful conversations that really get beneath the surface of issues. This show aims to inspire, inform and deliver practical insights on the challenges facing charity leaders today, for the benefit of leaders across the sector and for those who care about the important work of charities.
Charity Governance with Sophie Livingston
00:00:33
Speaker
I'm your host, Divya O'Connor, and each episode I will be interviewing a charity chief executive who will share with us their insights, knowledge and expert opinion on a particular topic or area of expertise. My guest today is Sophie Livingston, managing director of Trustees Unlimited. Sophie has extensive experience on both sides of the charity boardroom table, having served on boards of numerous organisations over the past 20 years and as founding CEO of City Year UK.
00:01:02
Speaker
Sexy is not usually a word that one associates with charity governance. This conversation is all about how the function of governance can be truly inspirational and what organisations can do to attract more diverse talent to their trustee boards. We highlight the importance of representation and role models in leadership. And Sophie talks about the development of an inspire list.
00:01:28
Speaker
a list curated to celebrate and showcase board members with different backgrounds and from all walks of life. As the charity sector and the world around us faces unprecedented change, this was truly a valuable conversation on how civil society can forge a better and brighter future for all. I hope you enjoyed the show.
Icebreaker and Personal Insights with Sophie
00:01:50
Speaker
Hi Sophie, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. Well, we always start off the show with an ice break around, which is just some lighthearted fun questions to enable our listeners to get to know you a little bit. So I have five questions for you and if you're ready, we can get started. Okay. Question one, can you name a book or a person that has had a profound impact on you as a leader?
00:02:15
Speaker
Well, a book I have just read which has had a profound impact on me and I think will as a leader going forward is Untamed by Glennon Doyle. It's just incredible about basically about how women are tamed and caged by society and how we break free of it. I'm throwing my pen around while I'm talking in these aspects. It's just fantastic. Highly recommend reading it. Wow. Question two. What would you say is your professional superpower?
00:02:45
Speaker
Oh, I guess pace. I work really fast. So I get a lot done. What are three words that your team would use to describe you at your best? I think inspiring, authentic, and determined. I absolutely agree with those. If you were a Spice Girl, which one would you be and why? Oh my goodness. I love the Spice Girls. Probably Scary Spice. She looked like she was having the most fun.
00:03:15
Speaker
Good call. And our final icebreaker question. If you had the opportunity to interview anyone in the world dead or alive, who would it be? And what one question would you like to ask them? So this has been the subject of a lot of conversation at home because I knew this question was coming and I ran it past my seven-year-old daughter who took it as a whole project, got out her great women book that we love reading. It's one of her favorite books.
00:03:40
Speaker
and made me literally write a list last night. So her picks were Frida Kahlo, what was your favourite painting was her question, and then Samuel Peeps, because she's studying the Great Fire of London, did the fire really stop at the end of your road? So those were my nearly seven-year-old daughter's picks. My pick would be Harriet Tubman,
00:04:00
Speaker
who I confess I hadn't heard of until I read one of my daughter's rebel girls books. She's an incredible woman, a slave in one of the southern states of America escaped slavery but then kept going back to rescue more slaves and she called them her passengers. She did it for many years until slavery was officially abolished and I suppose my question would be
00:04:24
Speaker
how did you have the strength to keep doing that? You'd escaped such a horrendous experience separated from your family, et cetera, and you kept going back to rescue people. And it's really, you know, her story is just a reminder of how much strength we can actually have inside us if we dig deep enough. And it makes me think, you know, am I doing enough? People like her are a bit of a guide star for that sort of question that we should all really be asking ourselves, especially at the moment.
00:04:51
Speaker
Wow. I certainly don't think I was as evolved as a seven-year-old. That's absolutely brilliant. And I love the strong feminist theme coming through there.
Role and Mission of Trustees Unlimited
00:05:02
Speaker
Sophie, our podcast topic today is making governance sexy. And I can't think of anyone better to talk to about this than you. You have
00:05:13
Speaker
extensive experience on both sides of the board table as a charity chief executive of City Year UK for over eight years and a long history going back about 20 years, if I'm right, of serving as a board member for a number of different organisations. And I'd like to start off by talking about your current role as Managing Director of Trustees Unlimited, a social purpose business. So tell us about Trustees Unlimited and what its mission is.
00:05:42
Speaker
So Trustees unlimited was founded in 2009 by NCVO, the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, Bates Wells the law firm and Rossum the search firm. And it was really founded because together they were coming across different governance challenges through their different work and realising that actually high quality governance rests on the quality of the people you have around your boardroom table.
00:06:08
Speaker
and that wasn't happening because there weren't enough affordable ways to recruit good experienced people to join boards and boards were relying on their own networks. So it was really founded on the belief that good governance at its macro level strengthened society and the mission for us now as a social purpose business is to promote and develop excellent governance
00:06:31
Speaker
across civil society. That is mostly through finding people for charities, but also through developing the skills of people from a wide range of backgrounds, but a huge number of them at the moment have come from corporate organisations like Google, Credit Suisse, Barclays, who we run our step-on-board programme with to help get more people with professional skills onto trustee boards. But
00:06:59
Speaker
I don't believe that improving governance is just about professional skills. I think it's about lived experience. I think it's about broadening the pool of people that trustee boards are recruiting from. So we'll probably come on later to talk about the importance of diversity. But we've also, since I joined, created a number of partnerships to try and help do that.
00:07:19
Speaker
Yes, I'd like to delve a bit more into your own personal experience here serving as a trustee. So you've been the chair of Little Village, co-chair and co-founder of Generation Change, trustee of the Royal Voluntary Service, trustee of Street Kids International UK, and chair of governors of a primary school. Sophie, given your huge breadth of experience in this area, what would you say are the most important qualities for being an effective trustee?
00:07:46
Speaker
I think, I mean, I've had to learn an awful lot about being a non-executive. It's been very good for me because I'm a natural doer, so I find it quite hard to restrain myself from the doing. But I think one of my trustees at CITIA used to talk about noses in, fingers out, which is a graphic way of describing probably the best way in which trustees can help. They have to look at and scrutinise everything that
00:08:12
Speaker
a charity does and feel confident that as a group responsible for the organisation, they feel satisfied that the charity is fulfilling its charitable objects, public benefit test, and fulfilling the strategy of the organisation. But they shouldn't be interfering in the day-to-day work of the executive, which is the bit I find more challenging. Mostly because the organisations I've been on the board of have been just so amazing. I've wanted to get more stuck in.
00:08:38
Speaker
So I think being curious, asking questions, being thoughtful, really trying to understand the work of the organisation and being collaborative with your fellow trustees, but also the executive, you know, for organisations that are big enough to have paid staff, actually those people hold the keys to the information, the DNA of the organisation, so that good relationship is really important.
00:09:01
Speaker
Yes, and I think it's an interesting point here to perhaps talk about power dynamics with the board versus the executive.
Governance Challenges and Diversity in Charity Boards
00:09:10
Speaker
So I've always felt that the way charities are structured are slightly odd because you have the board who are volunteers and they may or may not have extensive experience.
00:09:20
Speaker
in the particular area that a charity is operating in. And to your point, Sophie, they're not meant to do the doing. The doing is actually in the hands of the executive or the leadership team. And so the leadership team typically tends to be people have a lot of on the ground expertise and intimate knowledge of what it actually takes to deliver for the organization, the service, the mission on a really day-to-day basis. And yet,
00:09:48
Speaker
It is the board that pretty much holds all of the control and decision making power and often I think that's the cause of a lot of tension. So what do you think can be done to make governance more effective and to enable boards and leadership teams to be more accountable for the stewardship of the organisation?
00:10:08
Speaker
So I think I totally agree with you. And I think that power dynamic can be really challenging. Where you've got boards that are respectful of that, it's OK. But even then, I think it can be difficult. And preparing as an executive, preparing for a board meeting and trying to work through a huge amount of information can be really quite time consuming and stressful.
00:10:32
Speaker
I'm a natural collaborator, you know, if we get on to talk about generation change, that's why and how generation change evolved was how do we collaborate as a sector rather than be pitted against each other. So I think that collaborative working around a boardroom table rather than a focus on just risk management and difficult questions to try and catch the executive out should be the
00:10:56
Speaker
tone and style of effective board meetings, but I also think structurally there is a place for unitary boards for larger organisations. We have it in business. I don't see why we couldn't have it with larger, you know, million pound plus or five million pound plus organisations that are effectively really quite sophisticated businesses with more complicated
00:11:18
Speaker
sets of stakeholders and beneficiaries than arguably a lot of businesses. So why would you make the executive sit on a lower level to your other board members when in business you have executive directors and non-executive directors?
00:11:34
Speaker
So for me, unitary boards are something that should be commonplace in the sector. And I think there are some, but it's quite a rarity. And other people have proposed different options. So I spoke at NCVO's trustee conference last year back in the world when we could gather in person and have conferences. And I spoke alongside Philip Kirkpatrick from Bates Wells, who full disclosure is a founding director of Trustees Unlimited. And he's an amazing charity lawyer.
00:12:02
Speaker
was proposing a different model that involved I think it was an assurance board or some sort of separate check that could bring together the range of stakeholders you want but separated that from a working business board that was a lot smaller with executive and non-executive directors because I think there is that you know you do want to create a way through governance where you bring in lots of views and experience diversity of
00:12:29
Speaker
thoughts and backgrounds to help shape your strategy, but that conversation can be quite different to the sort of day-to-day judgment decisions that require more of a depth of understanding of operations, I think. I think that's what Philip was trying to propose through his model.
00:12:46
Speaker
Yes, I think that sounds like a great hybrid model. Why do you think there hasn't been more adoption of that sort of model or framework in the charity sector? I think it's quite easy to park governance stuff and get on with the day-to-day and feel like that's for later. And I think I was guilty of that little village to a certain extent over the last couple of years. We've been trying to grow as an organisation.
00:13:11
Speaker
we needed to diversify the board but there was always something else that was felt more pressing operationally but you know the strength of an organisation stands or falls on its governance that's where everything flows from and when you get to critical decision points that's when it shows up so it may not be a problem in the day-to-day but actually
00:13:33
Speaker
it when you need when you really need your board you really need your board so it's better when the sun is shining to put those measures in place now of course the sun isn't shining at the moment at all so you know it remains a particular challenge for charities to be thinking about structures but i do know from my trusted unlimited work that charities are really thinking about the composition of their boards
00:13:57
Speaker
Diversity is the thing that is the number one query that we get from charities looking to recruit trustees. They have definitely woken up in the last couple of years quite rightly to the need to diversify, which is a good start. Yes, indeed. There is so much focus at the moment on the need for more diversity on boards and I think it's also important
00:14:18
Speaker
as you say, Sophie, to have diversity of thinking, because when you are faced with really sticky challenges, actually having those different perspectives can really help an organisation pull through.
Inspiring Diverse Trustees with the Inspire List
00:14:30
Speaker
Yes. So in this context, you and I were talking earlier about a piece of work that Trustees Unlimited are leading, which is the curation of an inspire list. So tell us more about this inspire list and why it is important.
00:14:43
Speaker
Well, I suppose it's important to say to begin with that we're supporting it. So I've been in conversation with Wackers Khan, who is a trustee of Oxfam amongst many other things, who got in touch with me about a year ago actually looking at how he wanted to use the fact that he is
00:14:59
Speaker
an Asian man in Manchester who is a trustee of Oxfam. Before the end of his term, he wanted to use that platform to help inspire other people to become trustees. And he's done something similar with the honours system, working in communities to try and get more honours nominations from people from a broader perspective of backgrounds. And that's been quite successful. And he wanted to sort of apply that thinking to the trustee world. So we've been trying to work out what
00:15:28
Speaker
should we do? And Wackers and I have created a working group that I'm supporting as Trustees Unlimited that the working group is leading this work. The first piece of work is going to be this Inspire List. So during Trustees Week we'll be launching the call for submissions for people who are trustees from a broad range of backgrounds to put themselves forward. It's not a judge list, it's just to create a sense of there are people already
00:15:58
Speaker
from different ethnic backgrounds. So we're starting with ethnicity who are already trustees. We want to profile them, celebrate them, showcase them and have role models for other people to follow because I think one of the challenges around getting more diversity into any role, to be honest, is
00:16:17
Speaker
If you can't see other people like you, it makes it much harder to feel like you're welcome in that world. So although there's not enough people from different ethnic backgrounds on trustee boards, there are people and we want to showcase them. So that's what we're kicking off in Trustees Week.
00:16:33
Speaker
So Trustees Week is the first week of November, is that right? It is, yes. And we will include for our listeners links in the show notes to how you can add your submission for the Inspire List and indeed I suppose make recommendations, etc. But do you want to just tell listeners now, Sophie, what that website or link would be? Do you know it at the moment?
00:16:56
Speaker
I don't know off the top of my head, but it will be on the Trustees Unlimited website. It should be easy to find because we'll put a link on our front page, so trusteesunlimited.co.uk. And we want people to submit themselves because obviously they are submitting quite personal details about themselves. But I do think it's incumbent on all of us who know people who would fit that criteria to encourage them to put themselves forward.
00:17:20
Speaker
I think that encouragement is also part of being a good ally. It's about showing people that we want to support the work that they're doing effectively as pioneers, a lot of these people. And frankly, we all need some inspiration at the moment. So the more people we can gather onto this list, the better. Yes, absolutely agree with that. I look forward to seeing the Inspire List when it's finally published. Yes, it should be in January 21, hopefully. So we're giving ourselves enough time to reach out to people.
00:17:48
Speaker
Okay, so on the role of becoming a trustee, what advice would you give to any of our listeners who are considering becoming a trustee and what should they look for when seeking out board roles?
Becoming a Trustee: Advice and Insights
00:18:02
Speaker
So in terms of thinking about themselves as a trustee, I think it's important to think about
00:18:08
Speaker
your CV in lay terms, so how does your CV read to someone who doesn't understand or doesn't come from the world that you come from? So you will get a cross-section of people from all walks of life and professions on a trustee board who will be reviewing your
00:18:25
Speaker
CV and of course the one that I'm most used to from our Step on Board programme is people who've worked in banking for 20 years and have a very internal CV that frankly I wouldn't have a clue how to interpret so it's really important to to set out how your skills and experience apply to that.
00:18:42
Speaker
that world and that non-executive world. And then in terms of thinking about the type of trustee board you want to join, I think there's a number of things you should be considering. One is the cause, what causes do you really care about because you're only going to be giving up your time, your free time for things that really motivate you. Also location, obviously slightly less of a challenge at the moment because we're all meeting virtually, but when
00:19:06
Speaker
real life does eventually resume that's going to be critical but also do you want to give back to your local community or something a cause that's working quite near where you live or where you have connections to or do you want something that works more geographically spread spread out and then the size of organization as well so there are 185 000 charities across the country
00:19:29
Speaker
So you know they range in size and I think thinking about do you want to work or support a charity that has staff or not? Do you want to work with a charity that is on a growth trajectory and you can really help shape its development? Do you want to be part of a bigger organisation? That experience is very different, quite risk focused, a bit more removed from the hands-on day-to-day side of things. So I think thinking about those types of questions will help shape
00:19:57
Speaker
and narrow down the focus of organizations that you might then apply for and then also of course what skills you bring because trustee adverts will set out usually the type of skills that they want be that digital skills, marketing, treasurers and finance are obviously one that come up a lot particularly at the moment so looking at you know how would you fit that how would you market your background and also really importantly what lived experience do you have do you have
00:20:25
Speaker
particular personal experience of the cause that you want to make an impact on and make sure that you put that in your application. So we again, through step on board, had people feeling really nervous about disclosing that because obviously in a professional business world that
00:20:41
Speaker
might not be something you would do but actually that is exactly what you need to do to demonstrate your connection to that cause and your motivation and the other experiences you bring having been a carer for someone with Alzheimer's for example or experience of cancer or you know those sorts of things are really relevant and important. Trustee boards want to see the whole person
00:21:05
Speaker
and putting that across in your applications really and your interview is really important. I guess the final thing before I stop is I talk about treating it like a job application and taking it as seriously as that.
00:21:20
Speaker
because most trustee boards now, if they're doing things properly, will treat it like that as well and want to interview you. But it's also really important that you are also interviewing them. You're going to give up your time to commit to this organisation. You will be legally responsible as a trustee for that organisation. So you need to do your due diligence, look on the charity commission website for their
00:21:41
Speaker
and your reporting accounts, look at their finances and have your list of questions ready for those board members when you can have an interview so that you feel confident you know what you're getting into and confident that you can work with the people who are interviewing you.
00:21:56
Speaker
I think that's absolutely great advice, particularly around bringing out those transferable skills that you might have if you come from a different sector or industry, and importantly the lived experience. And at the heart of all of that, what's your connection to the cause and the mission of an organization?
Aligning Board and Mission Against Donor Influence
00:22:16
Speaker
So if we think a bit more about organizational mission and cause, I'd like to touch upon power dynamics with funders, which to my mind has a lot to do with unrestricted and restricted funding. So Sophie, you and I as charity leaders, I'm sure you've seen many examples of where Adona comes along with a big check, but they say they want it spent on sort of
00:22:40
Speaker
X service or Y program, which may not be 100% what the charity feels are the highest priority for their beneficiaries, but the charity needs the money, so they feel obliged to take this big check. And then that can lead to scope or mission drift. So I'd like to hear your thoughts on how can boards prevent mission drift and what can they do to ensure that the organization stays true to its core mission?
00:23:07
Speaker
It's a really tough one. It's obviously getting tougher. I think there's something around the funding sector itself being live to this. I know they've been doing their own work on diversifying their own boards, which I think helps with understanding of the type of issues that charities themselves are dealing with through the work they do, which I think is an important part of helping to have that conversation then with funders. So I suppose that's one of the
00:23:35
Speaker
from a trustee perspective, that's a critical area to be aware of. One of the questions you need to be live to asking the executive who may, you know, it's really hard when the pressure is on you to raise money, who may try and get
00:23:51
Speaker
some permission for funding through because they need to keep the show on the road. Your job as a trustee is to be a custodian of the higher purpose of the mission and vision of the organisation and you need to interrogate exactly what those funds are for and have an honest discussion as trustees with the executive about what are the implications
00:24:14
Speaker
of doing this and this is again where I think that the open, honest, collaborative working around a boardroom table will engender that rather than a power imbalance where a chief exec is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the trustees and get stuff through.
00:24:29
Speaker
That doesn't make for a healthy outcome on any level, really. It is about a chief exec feeling able to have that open conversation with a board that will understand those pressures and understand those choices that you're making and stand potentially with the chief exec and going back to the funder.
00:24:46
Speaker
and having that open conversation about look if you restrict the funding in this way we can't accept it. How about you know in some instances it may be you literally can't accept it in other instances it may be a negotiation with the funder around the terms of their funding or some piece of the funding. It's a really difficult one but I do think you know we have to think
00:25:11
Speaker
as people in the sector keep an eye on our overall mission in society rather than just perpetuating organisations for the sake of it. I'm actually really proud that with Generation Change we wound it down. I'd left about six months before it actually finally wound down but it was wound down and some of our assets were handed over to the Centre for Youth Impact but it had lived out its purpose and we moved on from it and not enough organisations do that so I think and that is
00:25:41
Speaker
Because I think that, you know, it's a totally natural imperative to think, how do we keep this thing going? It's so critical. But actually, sometimes you have lived out the organization's purpose and it is time to hand things on to other organizations, maybe doing things in a different way.
00:25:57
Speaker
Yes, I think this is where collaboration beyond just the boardroom but across the sector is so key, as you say, and perhaps identifying where another organization might actually be able to deliver that particular service better, and therefore perhaps even directing that donor to another organization.
00:26:15
Speaker
So I was listening to a podcast recently with Catherine Woodhead, who is the CEO of Muscular Dystrophy UK. And she spoke very honestly that particularly in the current climate and the pandemic crisis and the funding crisis, that one of their services, they actually handed over to another organization to run because there was a squeeze on income. So they felt that they might have to pull back and they felt actually this other organization was better placed to deliver given all of the changing circumstances.
00:26:44
Speaker
So it would be so great to see more of that sector collaboration. Absolutely. And actually when I was at Royal Vontry Service, those were some of the decisions that were taken around some of the services. I think it was Meals on Wheels moved on because it just didn't fit with the mission of the organisation anymore. And it was painful, I think, because it was a real legacy piece of work, but it was the right thing to move it under other organisations.
00:27:10
Speaker
Right, so there's a real widening of scope of mission. I like what you said in terms of we need to think about our mission as a society, not necessarily just as an individual organization. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think there's a sort of, we also need to be greater than some of our parts and think about what does civil society contribute.
00:27:28
Speaker
and what's our role in that as a trustee, yes of that organisation and we care deeply and passionately about that organisation, but it goes up higher than that. It goes to the cause the organisation is trying to tackle and then it goes to the role of civil society in making those changes and how do we fulfil our duties and further the causes of all of those things in a positive way. Sophie, I'd like to segue now into a slightly different topic.
00:27:53
Speaker
Okay.
Balancing Leadership and Family Life
00:27:54
Speaker
In episode five of this podcast, which was released a few weeks ago, I spoke with Charlotte Hill, the founding CEO of Step Up to Serve. And we spoke about the challenges of having babies and going on maternity leave whilst being a CEO. And I know, Sophie, like both Charlotte and myself, that you also had a child whilst being a CEO when you were at City Year UK. Oh, I did.
00:28:17
Speaker
I'm curious to hear how that experience was for you and having gone through the maternity leave process as a chief executive, what impact has that had on your perspective as a trustee? Yeah I mean I think so I've got two children now and I guess my perspective has changed inevitably because you know... Children do that to you? Children definitely do that to you! So the first time round I was
00:28:44
Speaker
I guess I was sort of angry. I was sort of in this sort of mode of I'm not going to let it take my career away. There's so much to do. I sort of had this almost this anger at my husband that he couldn't do any of this. And I get quite ill when I'm pregnant. So I was sick for
00:29:00
Speaker
actually with the first one it lifted thank goodness at 20 weeks and then I sort of had a slight blooming phase but for 20 weeks I was pretty sick so I was also just angry about that and probably hormonally angry and I felt the weight of being a chief exec really heavily and I didn't want to walk away from what I was describing at the time as my first baby city in the UK and desert it
00:29:25
Speaker
I think there was a bit of ego in that, to be honest. You know, actually, every organisation is bigger than one person and it survived. It was fine. But I do think it was a real mistake in not having a maternity leave cover. It was partly a money saving exercise. So a member of staff stepped up, but I think it would have been better to have an interim
00:29:47
Speaker
CEO go in and then step away again because it led to quite challenging relationship management with the member of staff who then had to take a step back down. You know, I remember her comment to me when she started the stepping up was
00:30:02
Speaker
Oh my goodness, I now get it. You have this amazing helicopter view of the whole organization. It's incredible. And it is an incredible privilege to have that. And once you've had it, having it taken away is quite challenging. So that would definitely be my lesson. I came back really quite quickly, but I think with One Child that was doable. By the time I had my second,
00:30:22
Speaker
I was quite open to working part-time which is what I do at Trustees Unlimited working flexibly. It is manageable but it has helped me build a different relationship with my second child in a different way to my first actually. Basically I've mellowed and I have accepted that you can have it all but not all at once and I just
00:30:45
Speaker
don't think I was ready to accept that first time round. It's just such a shock having a baby. I mean I've got a couple of friends who've recently had babies and both of them are like what on earth has just happened? You know you go from being a professional woman in charge of everything to suddenly having this small person
00:31:02
Speaker
who's got a will of their own and you've got to try and manage and it's gruelingly exhausting, but it's not intellectually stimulating. And I did find for the first six weeks of having my first baby that my head was hurting because I wasn't getting intellectual stimulation. I really, really missed that. And I found that really difficult with NCT groups and my yoga moms who are actually a better group than in my NCT group, mostly not understanding
00:31:30
Speaker
how much I was missing work. And I felt sort of almost ashamed of that, like it wasn't acceptable. So I think it's been nice actually talking to people like you and Charlotte about this because you have that similar perspective coming from a similar job and going off and coming back. People get it a bit more than people working in all sorts of jobs who are perhaps quite happy to have a year away from their job. When you really love your job, you miss it.
00:31:58
Speaker
I know, and it's such a part of your identity as well. And I derived such energy and drive from the work that I was doing as Chief Executive of Children with Cancer UK and I was so passionate about the cause and wanting to make a difference. And yes, absolutely agree with you. You almost don't want to be forced to step outside of that when you're really on that mission.
00:32:20
Speaker
And I know, Sophie, you'd mentioned that with the second daughter, you were in a very different position and that Trustees Unlimited sort of came along and wooed you when you were 38 weeks pregnant to join them and that you started working with Trustees Unlimited when she was just four months old. So what advice would you give to other women who are in leadership positions or thinking of stepping up into leadership roles?
00:32:45
Speaker
but are concerned about how they're going to balance a career with starting or having a family. I think you have to try and think about what is your setup going to be and your partner is absolutely critical to this because
00:33:01
Speaker
If you have a partner, they need to be part of this planning and part of this standing alongside you to make it happen. Now, of course, there are some things they can't do, but actually there's a lot they can and they need to be allowed in more. I was pretty astounded actually when the health visitor came for the visit, slight tangent.
00:33:22
Speaker
It makes me really cross. The health visitor came to visit when my second daughter was born, and my husband was there, and he said, oh, do you want me to stay? And she went, if you want. I'm totally disinterested in him. Well, how on earth are we going to get engaged dads if they're not even welcome in the health visitor meeting where you're talking about your child? It just made me so angry. So we have to make space for this to be a two person. If you're in a partnership, it is something you're doing together.
00:33:51
Speaker
And you need to work out how that's being balanced between you. So when I had my first child, my husband had his two weeks paternity leave and then started as special advisor to a government minister, which basically meant he really wasn't that around. And when we had our second child, he was able to take shared parental leave for 12 weeks.
00:34:13
Speaker
that was totally transformational for his relationship with her for the support that I had because I wasn't working at the time we could take it at the same time so her first three months of life was spent with both of us there it definitely made a difference to my
00:34:30
Speaker
capacity because I was, you know, we were tag teaming the nights, I was getting more sleep, I was more sane, I had more capacity with my other child. So all of that is really, really important. And then I also think that the world is changing a bit in terms of accepting women in leadership roles who have families, but there's still a way to go. That was one of the things I felt quite
00:34:55
Speaker
strongly about when I went off from the turn to leave with from City Year was I was being watched by the young women in my organisation's staff and by actually the young women who were volunteers with us. I actually had two of them who now run Girl Dreamer which is we partner with Trustees Unlimited. They're amazing. They started a City Year volunteers back in 2013 and I remember having a conversation with them up in our West Midlands office where they were saying we didn't know women could be chief execs.
00:35:25
Speaker
You're the first chief exec we've come across. Weirdly enough, we were emailing about it the other day because Amna was reminding me about it. And that I hadn't really clicked because I'd worked for two incredible female charity chief execs, the late Jane Slowie and Shaq Scosche.
Empowering Women in Leadership Roles
00:35:41
Speaker
So it was sort of normal to me to have a
00:35:44
Speaker
woman in charge but for them it really wasn't and so them watching me because during their program year they turned up in the September I was heavily pregnant I disappeared at Christmas and came back in the summer when they graduated with a baby and they've sort of seen that trajectory and then the following year they stayed on and they met my daughter and you know that she's she was part of the the City Year family and I made that quite deliberate
00:36:10
Speaker
that actually I'm not hiding that I've got a child, I'm not hiding that I have to get home for bath time, I'm making that quite overt. And I think the more we do that, and I think lockdown has helped that with children appearing on Zoom calls and things like that. Interviews on TV. Exactly, interviews on TV and that sort of stuff. It's becoming, thankfully, a bit more recognised that we have families, we have a family life and we have to integrate the two.
00:36:35
Speaker
Yes, isn't that amazing that they said to you, oh, we didn't know women could be chief execs? Wow. I was stunned by that. I was really stunned. And another example was I went to a school to present certificates to these children at a primary school who'd done an after-school club and awards at the end of term. And children are always obsessed with who's the boss, it seems. And these children did not believe I was the boss of City Year because I was a woman. And they were five or something?
00:37:04
Speaker
So depressing. Wow. So that's the age it starts. Yeah, it's really, really depressing. But those two incidents really have stuck in my mind around the importance of role modelling. And I guess it links back to the inspire list that I'm doing with Trustees Unlimited. You can't underestimate the importance of representation. It really matters.
00:37:27
Speaker
And we have to do more work to make those role models visible, but not just a sort of people on pedestals, but real people demonstrating what it really takes to make this work. I absolutely agree with you. And, you know, serving or certainly striving to be a role model is something that's really important to me. It's one of the reasons I launched this podcast because I want to get these messages out there. And I felt it was a way that I could help contribute to the leadership conversation.
00:37:55
Speaker
Going back to think about your own personal leadership journey, what advice would you give to yourself on day one of first becoming a Chief Exec or first having leadership responsibilities? Oh my goodness. Well, I mean, so I became Chief Exec of City Year at 32. I was totally untested.
00:38:16
Speaker
I mean, there's so much, frankly, that I learned over those eight years. I'm not sure I could impart it all, but I think there's a really brilliant saying that I keep and quote from Rosabeth Moskanta, who's a Harvard Business School professor, and she's on the board of sit here in the state. So I had the privilege of meeting her and it's everything feels like a failure in the middle.
00:38:38
Speaker
and it is so true. I would find that with all sorts of processes like trying to create a strategy or in the middle of our program year or whatever it was, you would feel like things were falling apart and I would hold on to that once I'd heard it and I think that would be the piece of
00:38:58
Speaker
advice that I would try and remind myself of or tell myself at the beginning when I didn't know it because I hadn't come across her at that point because you have to keep going and push on through that and then also I think also that it will be okay you know don't put so much pressure on yourself and believe in your own instincts whenever I've gone against my gut instinct I have regretted it and that's that's something else that I probably would have said to myself then
00:39:27
Speaker
I love that everything feels like a failure in the middle. And it reminds me of another saying actually, which is that everything turns out all right in the end. If it's not all right, it's not yet the end. Yes, exactly. It's the same principle. I love that one as well. Absolutely. So Sophie, we've come now sadly to the end of our podcast conversation. And on that note, do you have any final thoughts or reflections? I mean, what is one thing that you would like our listeners to take away from this conversation?
Encouragement to Become a Trustee
00:39:55
Speaker
Well, I would like them to think about becoming a trustee, if they're not already, because we need you. If you're listening to this podcast, you're probably going to be the type of person who'd be a great trustee. So please consider it. Check out the Trustees Unlimited website, get in touch with us, register your details, and really consider how you can contribute because charities need you, never more so
00:40:17
Speaker
Now, frankly, it is not just raining, it is pouring out there. For a lot of charities, they need skills and experience that you can bring to help them get through this, and you will benefit from it. I have grown so much from my trustee roles. They've definitely enhanced my own thinking, my leadership work, all of it, really. So it's win-win.
00:40:39
Speaker
get in touch. Absolutely. Sophie, it's been so lovely to speak with you today. Thank you so much for being a guest on the show. It's a pleasure. I've really enjoyed it.
00:40:50
Speaker
I really enjoyed my conversation with Sophie Livingston, managing director of Trustees Unlimited. Sophie's deep knowledge about governance and her passion about the importance of leaders serving as role models really shines through. I completely agree with her and personally recognize the challenges of being a female CEO. We still have a way to go in promoting female leaders so that no young person ever again says, we didn't know that women could be chief executives.
00:41:18
Speaker
Tune in for my next interview in two weeks time with Paul Evans, CEO of Leadership Through Sport and Business, a social mobility charity. Paul talks about the youth unemployment crisis and how one million of Britain's young people are likely to face significant barriers to finding work in the coming months.
00:41:36
Speaker
Meanwhile, if you enjoyed the show, please click the subscribe button on your podcast app and consider leaving us a five-star review. It will only take a few seconds and reviews really help make a difference to increase the visibility of the podcast and help spread the word. Visit the charityceo.com website for full show details and to submit questions for future guests. Thank you for listening.