In conversation: CAST’s new chair Professor Kerensa Jennings and outgoing chair Lord Jim Knight
In January 2023, CAST’s outgoing and incoming chairs, Lord Jim Knight and Professor Kerensa Jennings, met to discuss all things CAST: past, present and future.
In a fireside chat hosted at The Royal Society of Arts, Kerensa and Jim discussed their respective routes into CAST, highlights so far — and ambitions for the future of the organisation. They also touched on the composition of the board, the nature of the organisational model, the benefits of an agile funding approach — and more! Take a look at the full video below.
The transition comes as we approach our eighth year in operation — and indeed at a particularly exciting time for CAST. In addition to current programmes with Sport England and Deloitte, we are also set to launch a number of new initiatives over the coming months, spanning areas such as grantmaking, reuse, peer connection and new digital approaches — but all ultimately designed to help UK civil society organisations harness the full power of digital for social good.
And as the number of initiatives increases, naturally so too does the staff force needed to shape and drive these projects: since November, we have welcomed three new Programme Leads to the team — Natalie Marshall, Rajwinder K. Cheema and Ellen Smyth. Full details can be found on the team page, which also includes information on all nine board members.
We hope this video provides an insightful window into CAST’s world: we’d love to hear any thoughts, reflections or questions you might have: please get in touch with us at hello@wearecast.org.uk. And we’re currently working on a Q&A piece to showcase CAST’s strategy in more detail: if there’s a question about our strategy that you’d like to put to CAST’s director Dan Sutch, please email sonya@wearecast.org.uk, and we’ll look to answer as many questions as we can.
