Co-Executive Director

💷 Salary: £55,982 for a 4-day week.

🌍 Location: UK. Remote first, with some opportunities for co-working. This role is only open to UK residents.

⏰ Contract: Permanent, subject to available funding.4 day week (30 hours, full time) or 3 day week (22.5 hours, 0.75 FTE).Additional flexibility offered - we will make space to discuss this at interview stage.

Overview

Join Catalyst as we enter a new phase as an independent Community Interest Company (CIC), dedicated to shaping liberatory technology for just and regenerative futures. We're seeking a Co-Executive Director to help co-found and steer our next steps. This role involves leadership across multiple domains, including strategy, operations, and community engagement, within a non-hierarchical, collaborative team and network.

We don’t require a degree or any particular qualifications for this role; lived experience, plus the heart and stomach for sometimes challenging but immensely rewarding work, is more important.

About You

The ideal candidate will possess two or more of the following:

• Experience of setting up a social enterprise or building something new (like a project)
• Experience of fundraising and generating income, especially for a start-up
• Experience of managing operations (such as finance, HR, governance), particularly innovative practices, such as RadHR and co-budgeting
• Experience of storytelling, narrative building or communications strategy for a network or movement
• Experience of embedding values in core practice, and/or leading anti-oppression work, activism or systems change work
• Experience in advocating for ethical tech practices, informed by personal or learned experiences of digital injustices
• Experience of power-sharing practices like sociocracy that support cooperative organising, including potentially through models like DisCOs.

You’ll thrive in this role if you:

• Are entrepreneurial and innovative, willing to take on multiple roles and thrive in dynamic/emergent environments
• Are excited to create something new by experimenting and working in participatory ways
• Value and enjoy building relationships, collaborations and partnerships
• Have strong digital skills and networks, are open to learning (and teaching!) new tools, and care about technology’s potential, limitations, and harms
• Are passionate about helping shape a values-led organisation, and in particular our values of love, curiosity, equity, collectivism and reciprocity
• Embrace learning and challenge, both giving and receiving constructive feedback
• Are committed to the personal growth/deep inner work required of systems change and willing to hold space for difficult conversations
• Can work with ease remotely and enjoy autonomy/self organising
• Are comfortable with open working, i.e. communicating questions, learnings and decisions in a transparent and accessible way.

If you don't feel you fit all of these criteria, but you still think this role could be for you, we'd still love to hear from you!

About Catalyst

Since its inception in 2019, Catalyst has evolved from a collaborative initiative incubated by a charitable organisation, CAST, to a standalone CIC. We are beginning to deliver an exciting new vision and mission, which has been co-created with our community and focuses on the intersection of tech and power.

As we establish ourselves as a CIC and redesign how we work and what we do, it is akin to being in startup mode. We have strong foundations to build on, including established funding partnerships and a wide reaching network. However, we are approaching the end of our current multi-year funding agreements and recognise that a new chapter is beginning with the launch of our new vision. Building new funding partnerships is a big priority for us, along with deeply considering who makes up the network.

Read more about Catalyst’s transition and history.

Our next phase

We believe what needs catalysing now in the social impact sector is the integration of the digital transformation and power transformation agendas. This means going beyond good, accessible design and responsible data practice, and also considering organisational design, procurement practices and who/how/where power is held when it comes to digital. Thinking beyond organisations to consider the wider systems - and people - that affect, and are affected by, our tech choices and behaviours.

We want to help the social sector take a more inclusive, innovative and radical approach to tech. We’ll do this by modelling and surfacing digital work that builds collective power, centres communities in decision making and enables entirely new possibilities.

We call this shaping liberatory technology for just and regenerative futures.

Our recent Tech Justice report is a good example of where we’re heading and why it’s important.

About the role and our team

You will be part of a non-hierarchical, lean team of three, at the core of an evolving network. You will also be a Co-Executive Director of the CIC, with the legal and ethical responsibilities this entails.

We operate on a basis of pay parity. Collectivism is one of our core values, and we use collaboration practices such as consent-based decision making and nonviolent communication.

While we hope to build this role around the person, we are also looking for someone that will complement our existing experience and skills. Your immediate colleagues will be Co-Executive Directors, Ellie and Megan:

• Ellie has been part of the Catalyst journey since the beginning, and recently has been overseeing Catalyst’s delivery and learning work. She is passionate about connecting people and ideas, participatory governance, and living from a love ethic (credit Bell Hooks ❤️).
• Megan joined Catalyst in May 2023. Over the last year she has had a particular focus on the operational aspects of the transition to the CIC. Her background is in the charity sector, with a focus on strategy and digital. She is passionate about developing cultures and ways of working that enable people to do their best work.

We also anticipate a reasonable handover period with Jo, who is acting as an interim Executive Director until this role is appointed, then moving into a freelance support role in the Autumn. We will also be recruiting a number of Non Executive Directors.

Read more about our team.

You will work with our network of ‘Activity Leads’ (delivery partners), funders, and a range of supporting partners. We also have wider support for the core team, currently including a freelance virtual assistant, a freelance project manager, accountants, a communications agency, professional coaches, evaluation specialists, and a HR consultant.

Our network is changing, with some work coming to an end, and other projects continuing or pivoting. One of our priorities is to ensure new people can join and shape this next phase of the network, bringing a more diverse range of lived and learned experience and expertise. Catalyst is currently organised in a number of self-governing ‘circles’, which make decisions and allocate funds through consent-based decision making. We are in the process of co-designing what the next phase might look like.

This role is fully remote, with opportunities for in-person connection throughout the year.

What you’ll be doing

We all wear many hats! These are the kinds of things you may lead, or be a part of:

• Managing our finances and considering how we can be financially sustainable - including bringing and building relationships with new potential funders, and contributing to fundraising activities
• Ensuring the CIC meets its statutory obligations - including satisfying the community interest test and ensuring annual financial reports are filed in a timely manner
• Planning and stewarding programmes of work that weave together multiple needs, perspectives and research findings - including project co-design and decolonial evaluation activities with folks at the margins of the tech and social impact sectors
• Organisational design and governance - including principles, policies, ways of working and systems that support and deepen our distributed, networked approach
• Working on communications strategy - including storytelling and developing narratives alongside our comms partner, Passion4Social, and helping convene the network
• Improving our own use of technology, tools and data
• Ensuring we live and continue to embed our values, and hold each other to account.

Contract and funding

This is a permanent contract.

We have a good level of funding in place for the period up until 31 March 2025. We have currently secured some funding for the period from 1 April 2025 but need significantly more to support our work to the level of our ambition. Part of your role will be helping to secure this funding, alongside your fellow Directors. What we can’t offer in longer-term security we can more than make up for in excitement and opportunity 🙂

Benefits

• 4-day week (additional flexibility offered in working hours, around core meetings)
• 6 weeks annual leave, plus extended seasonal breaks
• Wellbeing budget to support, e.g., personal therapy costs
• Training and development budget, up to £1,200 per annum
• Pension with NEST: Catalyst CIC will contribute up to the equivalent of 5% of the Employee’s salary to the scheme, matching the level of the Employee’s contribution.
• Budget for co-working space
• The opportunity to shape a new startup and influence a sector
• A supportive and values-led team!

How to apply:

The process

We’re running an inclusive and transparent application process to make these opportunities as accessible as possible and ensure a diverse range of people are able to demonstrate their skills and experience, both lived and learned.

Read more about our recruitment process.

We'd like you to answer the following questions using the form link below:

1. Tell us about something you’ve contributed to starting, what your role was, and why it excited you.
2. Catalyst aims to be part of societal shifts which see the digital and charity sectors moving to more equitable leadership methods (i.e. from dominance to partnership; from extraction to reciprocity and regenerative cultures; from humanity as separate and individualistic to an embedded, interdependent part of the surrounding environment). What excites you most about contributing to these societal changes?
3. Share three specific and unique skills, perspectives, experiences and/or knowledge you can bring which you think would be beneficial to the role and Catalyst as a whole. Why did you choose them and how would they help you and the team?

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✍🏽 Apply Now>>>>

To apply for this role please complete a form by the end of 12 May 2024.

If you'd prefer to email us the responses to the outlined application questions, then please download our recruitment form here, fill it out, and then email it to hello@thecatalyst.org.uk.

The aim of this approach is to make the opportunity as accessible as possible and ensure a diverse range of people are able to demonstrate their potential.

If you have any questions about the role or the processes, then please add comments to this page or contact us on the email above.

After your application

We’ll be in touch with successful candidates by 21 May. At this stage, we will send you a task which we expect to take no more than 3 hours to complete and you will be paid £150 for your time. We will also share the interview questions in advance to help you prepare.

Interviews and discussions about your task will take place on 4 June. We aim to make our final decision by 10 June.

If any of these dates are challenging for you, then please let us know when you submit your application.

Data protection

Read our applicant privacy notice.

Questions

• Can people outside of the UK apply for this role?
• This opportunity is only open to UK residents.
• Is there an office space?
• There isn't an office space but there is budget to cover the cost of co-working space, cafés etc.
• Is this role permanent?
• Yes, so long as Catalyst has sufficient funding, this role will be funded on a permanent basis. We have a good level of funding in place for the period up until 31 March 2025. We have currently secured some funding for the period from 1 April 2025 but need significantly more to support our work to the level of our ambition. Part of your role will be helping to secure this funding, alongside your fellow Directors. What we can’t offer in longer-term security we can more than make up for in excitement and opportunity 🙂.
• Will the applicants' names be shared publicly?
• No

📄 You can download this job advert in Word or PDF format here:

‍Word Version - Co-Executive Director at Catalyst Job Advert.docx

‍PDF Version - Co-Executive Director at Catalyst Job Advert.pdf

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