Firetree Fellowship Field Notes (May 2024): Spotlighting Resources for Senior Leaders in Southeast Asia
How do you find senior, highly experienced leaders who are values-aligned with your organization, who are committed to specific communities in Southeast Asia, who are currently navigating a transition out of the non-profits they’ve led AND are wanting to explore building a new initiative? The Firetree Senior Fellowship is clearly a niche offering. Is it too niche? This is something we continue to reflect on as a team.
But over the course of 2024, we’ve experienced an internal shift in how we think about sharing our fellowship opportunity and finding senior leaders to support.
Shifting the Spotlight: What other opportunities are out there?
When you have a resource or opportunity for leaders, it is a given that you’ll want to highlight your own programme and reach out to your target audience as best as you can. For the Firetree Senior Fellowship, we’ll continue to do this through our nominator network and by strategically engaging on platforms like LinkedIn.
But we are also thinking about what the experience must be like for senior leaders who are looking for resources and support. How can we make it easier for them to find all these different resources and to also reflect on what type of support they actually need?
A small step we are taking in this direction is to collaborate with other organizations who are also offering programmes or resources for leaders in Southeast Asia. If we can help amplify their messages and create shared spaces for leaders to explore these opportunities together, perhaps it will save time for leaders and make their explorations more meaningful.
What’s Next? Webinar: A collaboration of like-minded organizations
Last May 8th, Firetree collaborated with a group of organizations that we highly respect to put together a webinar called “What’s Next? Career Resources for Social Impact Leaders in Southeast Asia”. We hoped to curate a conversation for experienced impact leaders in the region who are thinking about the next chapter in their careers. We know that this journey could look very different for senior leaders — some may be looking for new roles or transitioning into new fields, while others may want to explore a more entrepreneurial path and launch a new initiative.
Aside from the Firetree Fellowship, we had Léa Klein (Asia CEO of jobs that makesense) and Sara Heintzelman (Operations Director of the Mira Fellowship) share insights and opportunities for senior & mid-career leaders. The session was expertly moderated by Erika Tatad (Director at xchange PH).
If you missed the webinar, here’s a link to the recording:
We hope to continue these types of collaborations and conversations for senior leaders in Southeast Asia. If your group is interested in working together and have ideas for collaborations, please feel free to reach out to us at fellowship@firetree.org.
