Job description
It should be easy to be healthy; it isn’t. The food system is rigged against us, flooding our high streets, schools and supermarket shelves with junk food then putting billions into marketing that keeps it centre stage in our minds. Bite Back 2030 is a youth activist movement set up to challenge a food system that’s been set up to fool us all.
We now want to move to the next phase which means scaling up our ambition for impact. We want to mobilise and equip a mass movement of young people who demand higher standards and who call out the manipulation of the junk food giants,
We want to find a new Chair who shares our passion for empowering youth leadership and transforming our food system to help us to achieve this.
Role Description
1. Strategic leadership
- Work with the Board to ensure that the charity remains youth-led and focused on achieving a food system where all young people have the opportunity to be healthy
- Ensure that the Board is able regularly to review major risks and associated opportunities, and satisfy itself that systems are in place to take advantage of opportunities and manage and mitigate the risks
- Ensure that the Board fulfils its duties to ensure sound financial health of the charity, with systems in place to ensure financial accountability
2. External relations
- Work with the Board, when requested by the CEO or Youth Board, to support the work and external profile of the charity – e.g. by leveraging own relationships with key decision makers and/or potential donors.
3. Board efficiency & effectiveness
- Work closely with the Chief Executive to ensure that meetings are well planned, with clear agendas and supporting materials
- Chair meetings of the Board of Trustees effectively and efficiently, bringing impartiality and objectivity to the decision making process and ensuring that the Board takes collective ownership
- Monitor that decisions taken at meetings are implemented
- Foster, maintain and ensure that constructive relationships exist between Trustees
4. Governance
- Ensure that the composition of the Board is regularly refreshed and incorporates the right balance of skills, knowledge and experience needed to govern and lead the charity effectively and which also reflects the wider population
- Develop productive working relationships with Trustees, communicating effectively and motivating them to optimise their leadership effectiveness
- Consult annually with Trustees, regarding their role and responsibilities and helping them objectively to assess their own performance as a board member.
- Ensure the integrity and ethics of the Board’s governance practices including its adherence to the charity’s bylaws and policies
- Ensure that all other governance arrangements are working in the most effective way for the charity
5. Relationship with CEO
- Establish a strong, effective and a constructive working relationship with the Chief Executive, in which the CEO feels able to speak openly about concerns, worries and challenges
- Ensure that the CEO is held to account for achieving agreed objectives; conduct an annual CEO appraisal and remuneration review in consultation with the Board
- Ensure that the Chief Executive has the opportunity for professional development and has appropriate external professional support
- Ensure the existence of a CEO succession plan and, when necessary, oversee a search for a new CEO and appointment of an interim CEO
Person Specification
Critical
- High standard of classic board chair skills, including the ability to:
- Engage all Board members in discussions and decisions
- Manage Board meetings effectively and efficiently
- Listen to all contributions, synthesise conclusions and reach closure
- Challenge and provoke when needed
- A passion for Bite Back including:
- Our mission and our framing of the systemic issues in the food system
- Ensuring that we engage deeply with youth and prioritise their voice in Board decisions
- The importance of diversity, equity & inclusion
- The ability to devote sufficient time (approx. 1 day/month)
Desirable
- Bring – and be willing to leverage – personal networks, including key decision makers or influencers in government, education, health, and the corporate world, as well as potential donors
- Have practical experience of leading the transition from a start-up to a mature organisation
- Personally or professionally bring deep insights into how Generation Z and young Millennials see the world
- Bring personal expertise in any of these functional areas: legal; Gen Z audience building; PR/brand building; or government policy