Announcing my departure from FAIR SHARE of Women Leaders.

It is with heavy heart and excitement for what is to come, that I am sharing with you my soon-to-be departure from FAIR SHARE of Women Leaders. Today I want to share why I decided to do so, and thank the FAIR SHARE team and my co-lead Helene, for the last few years we worked together.

Recently I reread my application to FAIR SHARE of Women Leaders from 2020. I remember reading the job listing and thinking: “This sounds really cool. I feel like this organisation actually wants to critically reflect power structures and that my voice as a racialised person in Germany would actually find space here.” Four and half years on, my journey with FAIR SHARE is coming to an end. This organisation has indeed not shied from critically examining power structures within the social impact sector and made space for team members’ varying positionalities and their lived realities.

Over the past few months, I have been reflecting on my personal passions and priorities. While I have been deeply committed to FAIR SHAREs mission and vision, I feel it is time for me to focus my energy and efforts on my ongoing passion as a climate justice organiser.  I joined FAIR SHARE as a junior associate in September 2020 and together with my colleague Lea, we were a little dream duo who worked on both the still very young international and German Monitors. At the time, we struggled with processes and software, like the language gap between software developers and non-software developers. We had to learn that our work shouldn’t be driven by tools, but the other way around. Over these four years, we have grown smarter from this experience and are now making tools support our mission. Starting with this very strong focus on data, FAIR SHARE has become an organisation that seeks to transform the structures of the social impact sector which reproduce injustices. With more and more focus shifting towards feminist leadership, this allowed us to unlearn “that’s just the way it is/it’s always been done” and develop other forms of building a workplace based on feminist principles. Having a work environment  based on feminist leadership principles was a remarkable experience, and I believe finding this elsewhere will be very tough.

My most recent challenge at FAIR SHARE was taking on the role of Co-Executive Director. For over a year and half, I have had the chance to learn what it means to lead an organisation, which is very different from managing a project. From sleepless nights due to financial concerns for our small & young NGO to understanding an organisational budget, while still trying to accommodate everyone’s humanness within this capitalistic world order, I have navigated many challenges alongside my Co-ED Helene. I am grateful for the trust my colleagues placed in me, allowing me to learn and become a “leader” who can admit to not knowing it all and to giving me the time and patience to discover my strengths and weaknesses in this role.

Over these past four years, I have had the chance to meet wonderful people who have supported not only the organisations growth but also supported my own learning journey, from the members of the first Action Circle, to the We are Feminist Leaders Programme, Mentors such from Aspiration Tech, and my wonderful colleagues. I am deeply grateful for all their support.

At FAIR SHARE, we attempt to do things differently. That is why you are reading about my “departure” from me directly rather than from HR after I have already left. As we are currently building a governance structure that reflects feminist principles, we are setting up a group consisting of members of the team, the advisory council and Helene to guide the transition process as participatory as possible. This leadership transition is a practical opportunity for FAIR SHARE to test feminist principles and explore new ways for governance through real-time execution and interactive participation.

During this transition time, an interim co-leadership team will divide the tasks that were shared amongst Helene and me. We had previously tried something similar, while Helene had taken a sabbatical in 2022. Rather than find an external interim individual who would first have to get to know FAIR SHARE, the team felt that this approach reflects our values. We will share more about this in the coming weeks.

While I am sad to leave this amazing group of people, the wonderful – but also tough –conversations, and the work with our partners and community, I know that the feminist bubble is a village. We will see each other again at various conferences, protests and Zoom meetings to plan and implement more good trouble.

In Solidarity,

Tatu