21st-century governance for 21st-century leadership: Welcoming our new board
Year Here CEO Zoe Stanton invites you to join us in welcoming our four new Board members.
We are hugely excited to celebrate our new board members joining the Year Here family, and would like to extend an invitation to our wider friends, partners and supporters to welcome them with us.
We went out looking for megastars who wanted to contribute their diverse skills and perspectives to Year Here’s mission. And megastars is what we got. I’m super excited about the Year Here Board for many reasons; the diverse makeup, our 21st-century leadership model, and the high-quality governance we have in place to drive us forward during our next phase.
Diversity of perspectives and skills
Our board members bring the value of diverse perspectives, backgrounds and lived experience. They are professionals with specialist expertise in commercial, venture, investment and governance. We’re excited to welcome individuals with a deep personal knowledge of social structures through an intersectional lens, as well as a masterful range of skills and expertise. We know that this combination of learned and lived knowledge is the best way to support our mission.
Co-Chair governance — 21st-century leadership modelled
Year Here’s work is about developing better leaders for a better society. We advocate for and help build leadership capabilities fit for today’s world. Leadership that is entrepreneurial, empathetic, purpose-driven, gives away power and is collaborative. I love our new co-chair leadership model that blends the skills and expertise of Sneh Jani-Patel and Zoë Whyatt to deliver an empowering force. By practising and demonstrating an effective co-leadership model, we will help to build the case for others to follow.
High-quality governance to drive us through our next phase
Over 100 applications for the roles resulted in our new board, so we know we’ve landed on quality. We are undertaking work to refine and define our focus for our next stage, building and strengthening our climate justice and equity work. We are ambitious about further opening up the opportunity to work in social innovation and will extend our offer of support to social entrepreneurs and social ventures through our incubator programme. I know that we have the right board to support us through these next phases; positively demanding, inspiring and stretching.
Please join us in welcoming…
Siddika joins us as a venture guru strengthening our knowledge and network in venture creation and acceleration. Siddika leads venture development at BCG Digital Ventures as her day job, working with the world’s most influential companies to invent, invest in, and build startups. Siddika is an entrepreneur herself, having founded an award-winning startup and being recognised as one of the Top 500 Global Business Leaders in the Islamic Economy.
Samar brings significant commercial and scaling expertise. She is currently COO at PropTech firm Spring which recently raised over £100M, and has worked in a diverse set of industries from investment banking, e-commerce and social enterprise, to now property,
Samar brings a deep understanding of social enterprise and the challenges of scaling impact, having founded Baby Hero, an ethical children’s clothing company.
Zoë is a seasoned CEO and Chair, now bringing this leadership and governance experience to Year Here as Co-Chair. Zoë has worked in leadership roles in tech startups, charity, social business and venture philanthropy globally. Zoë is interim CEO at campaigning organisation 38 Degrees.
Sue joins our board alongside Board positions for the MOBOs, Wembley to Soweto and the National Opera Studio. Sue brings significant commercial, HR and governance experience as a qualified HR Director and having previously worked in the public sector, private sector, not-for-profit and private equity. Sue is currently Global CEO of Maggie & Rose the family members club, and was previously CEO at The Hospital Club and MD for a leading educational digital media agency.
Our new NEDs will join myself, Sneh Jani-Patel and Adam Swersky to form the board to take us into our next phase as a business.
With our new board, a growing team, more face-to-face learning and exciting changes to our branding and curriculum, the next 12 months are set to be a monumental time for Year Here.
Interested in partnering with Year Here? Find out more here or email Fellowship Director Anna Markland at anna.markland@yearhere.org. We begin recruiting for our 2022 Fellowship in September; register your interest here.
