By Susan Daniels, former CEO of the National Deaf Children’s Society, chair of Groundbreakers, and civil society governance trainer
The National Deaf Children’s Society was set up in 1944 by a small group of parents of deaf children who met when bombs were dropping in central London during the Blitz.
The Memorandum of Articles of Association, whilst having been updated on a regular basis, still reflects the founders’ determination that parents of deaf children should have a central role in the governance of the charity. The maximum size of the board is 12 people, and a majority of trustees must be parents of deaf children. The Chair must also be a parent of a deaf child.
When trustee board vacancies arise, a thorough skills audit is undertaken, and all trustee positions are advertised widely. When a parent trustee is sought, the position is advertised to the membership, which consists of over 50,000 individuals, with a clear role description, spelling out the skills being sought. Mindset and attitude are key ingredients within the role description, and the rigorous interview process reflects this.
The governance team support the governance committee in the shortlisting process and interviews are conducted by the nominations committee, consisting of the chair, vice chair, chair of governance, an independent governance expert, with the CEO as an ex-officio member.
The recruitment of a new chair is a pivotal moment for any charity. As CEO, you have to tread a careful line between supporting the trustee board in the process without unduly influencing it but also knowing that the success or otherwise of the relationship can be a make-or-break time for the charity.
When the National Deaf Children’s Society was looking for a new chair, the charity was in the process of undertaking a huge agile transformation programme which would impact on every aspect of the charity’s operations.
With the current chair’s term of office coming to an end, we needed to ensure that the new chair would not only have the ability and required competencies to provide leadership to the Board but also have an appreciation of the challenges we would face throughout the agile transformation process both from a strategic and operational perspective.
The governance committee began by reviewing the chair’s role description to ensure it accurately reflected the requirements of the role and the strategic context for the charity. Mindset and behaviours were seen to be as important as competencies and this was tested through the interview process.
There was a debate as to whether the charity should advertise the role amongst the membership or seek expressions of interest from current members of the board. The board was strong, and it was felt that it would be better to do the latter and seek applications from existing board members rather than parachute someone into the board as chair.
There is no right or wrong answer to this question but the trustees felt that it would be better to support and develop an existing board member as chair than bring someone in cold and run the risk, that for whatever reason, the appointment did not work out.
The governance committee received two expressions of interest from two experienced and well qualified trustees. All members of the board were aware that there was no automatic progression from any existing trustee position or honorary officer role to the role of chair and that all such appointments require a formal expression of interest stage followed by an interview. Interviews were conducted by a panel that included an independent panellist in line with good recruitment practice, ensuring an objective and transparent process.
The panel had an extremely difficult decision as both candidates were eminently appointable. As I felt I could work with either, I deliberately refrained from giving my views but was obviously keen that the new chair understood the radical nature of our agile transformation programme and could provide the necessary leadership to the board as they grappled, from a governance perspective, with a completely new operating model. The debate as to whether it is possible for the board to function as an agile board or should operate in a more traditional fashion as the board of an agile organisation is ongoing!
After much deliberation, the panel choose the candidate who demonstrated their commitment to agile transformation, experience of overseeing such a programme in their own professional sphere and whose enthusiasm for this modus operandi was palpable.
In conclusion the role of the independent panellist was key, and her experience, wisdom and impartiality was extremely beneficial to the panel’s deliberations, particularly as the decision was so finely balanced.
I worked with the new chair from December 2022 until I stood down as CEO of the National Deaf Children’s Society in July 2025. His understanding of the positive impact that our wholescale move to agile would have on our customers as well as his ability to take each board member’s views into account whilst providing appropriate leadership to the board, made him an excellent appointment. The charity could not have had a better Chair during such a crucial time in its history, and it was a pleasure to work with him during this time.