Introducing our interim Co-ED team

A few days ago, our Co-Executive Director, Lisa Tatu Hey, announced her departure from FAIR SHARE of Women Leaders. Tatu has been integral to building FAIR SHARE from almost the beginning and the first person to join the co-founder Helene in the Co-ED role – thanks to her creativity, empathy and power-critical mindset we have a strong foundation for long-term co-leadership at FAIR SHARE. While we are saddened to see her leave after 1.5 years as our Co-ED and 4 years at FAIR SHARE, we are excited about her future endeavors and look forward to crossing paths and collaborating with her again in the social impact sector. 

In light of her departure, FAIR SHARE is entering a transitional period in its governance. It is key for us to keep up our momentum as we search for a new Co-Executive Director. Our goal is to continue our work in making the civil society sector more feminist as well as our own organisational journey towards feminist governance processes and structures. 

Going back to a one-person leadership model didn’t feel like a fit. Instead, with the Advisory Council’s support, we collectively decided for an interim solution made up of existing team members (more on that below). Today, we are excited to introduce our Interim Co-Executive Directors (Co-EDs), Ariane Alam and Sophia Seawell, who will work with Helene Wolf in the months while we search for our new Co-ED. 

Ariane, Sophia and Helene will work together on internal processes and policies, learning frameworks and conflict mechanisms, fundraising, and ensuring a smooth transition period for the organisation.

Reflecting on the Transition Process 

This is our first CO-ED transition, so (yet again) we are finding our way as we walk together. In keeping with our commitment to feminist and collective decision-making, the planning of this transitional period has been a collective effort within the FAIR SHARE team. Upon learning of Tatu’s departure, we faced an important decision: whether to hire an external Interim Co-ED, have a single team member step up to the position (necessitating a redistribution of their workload), or share the workload among the entire team. 

After several rounds of deliberation and discussions, we chose to share the responsibilities collectively. This approach allows everyone to step up in the different aspects of our work, until we welcome a new long-term Co-ED. We also reflected on our understanding of leadership as a power-critical and power-sharing approach: even though this is a transition of a formal leadership role, it takes a collective to step up together to re-distribute roles and responsibilities and to support one another in times of significant changes. This involves our team, the Co-Chairs and the entire Advisory Council co-shaping the months ahead and our partners and communities who serve as our critical friends and hold us accountable during the process. 

As a result, we now have:

• Two interim Co-EDs who will retain large parts of their previous roles while also sharing leadership responsibilities with the remaining Co-ED,
• A 5-person recruitment team comprising of two team members, Helene and two FAIR SHARE Advisory Council members (Leila Billing and Robin Hodess) to find our next Co-ED,
• All team members taking on additional responsibilities within ongoing or new projects and programmes.

We look forward to sharing this process and our lessons learned with you as we move forward. 

The recruitment for a new FAIR SHARE Co-Executive Director has started.

Click here for more information.