Trustees

The Role:

Southern Brooks

The Client:

The Client

Southern Brooks Community Partnerships has been established for over thirty years and works with families, older people and children within the communities to understand local needs, and bring people together.

They provide practical support to help people improve their lives, from training courses to job clubs to one-to-one support.

Our Challenge

The current board is passionate about the work of Southern Brooks and have invested their time to working in partnership with the Local Authority and other like-minded organisations within South Gloucestershire to help empower individuals and build stronger communities, addressing the charity’s key areas of work: learning & development, health and wellbeing, and community cohesion.

Southern Brooks has two specific ongoing commercial projects – the expansion of a highly successful, existing training programme and an affordable housing scheme, being developed in conjunction with the local authority.

With this in mind, Southern Brooks Community Partnerships appointed Moon Executive Search as their official recruitment partner to help identify individuals from a wide range of commercial backgrounds, including those with experience in the following areas:

Commercial social ventures
Legal
Business development
Project management skills
Social housing
Health
Social care

In particular, Moon was briefed to identify voluntary Board members who could play a major role in contributing to its planning and development, strategic oversight, commercial development and management of the charity.

Our Offering

Sandy Hinks, Head of Charity Practice, brought her extensive knowledge and expertise within the third sector to bear from the outset, by carefully considering individuals within her network who could contribute effectively to the development and success of Southern Brooks.

Key criteria that Sandy considered included:

Strong business contact networks within South Gloucestershire or Bristol, which could be leveraged to benefit Southern Brooks.
Ambition, tenacity and those who could challenge opinions appropriately.
Local knowledge and wider experience of commercial social ventures, legal, business development, project management skills, social housing, health and social care.

Following strategic reach outs, Sandy then conducted detailed candidate interviews, which helped her to draw out motivations and suitability. After careful consideration, she then presented a diverse shortlist of candidates for Southern Brooks stakeholders to consider for formal interviews.

Our Solution

From the subsequent stakeholder interviews, 3 candidates were invited to join the Board of Trustees at Southern Brooks:

Harry Partington has previous Trustee and Chair experience. He brings a strong background in engaging with business leaders and experience of helping businesses and organisations realise strategic objectives, ranging from listed financial services companies (including a financial mutual) to a leading renewable energy provider. These skills will be a huge benefit to help Southern Brooks with their future objections and goals. In addition, Harry also brings a strong commercial acumen and a wide range of leadership and communication skills to the board.

Stephen Baker was appointed to his first Trustee position at Southern Brooks. He brings over twenty years’ experience within the Construction industry, including twelve years of social housing experience from client side and over six years’ experience in development. He has a proven track record in the development of innovative and award-winning housing schemes, and he has successfully managed house development sales and regeneration teams as well as onsite teams. These skills and his experience of managing budgets will be of great use to Southern Brooks with their impending commercial projects.

Paul Timmins is a versatile Operations Director, displaying a solid track record of success gained in Financial Services. He is a strong relationship builder, both internally and externally, with the ability to engage with customers and ensure they remain at the heart of the business. As a natural hands-on leader who drives performance across multiple sites, Paul possesses the ability to empower teams to achieve outstanding results. Renowned for professionalism and high standards, Paul is an innovative and strategic thinker with a proven track record of significant business growth and increasing profitability. Again, Paul can add value to the board and bring a strong commercial background to help, plan and manage the charity and its new and exciting projects.

Sandy Hinks, Head of Charity Practice at Moon Executive Search, said:

”I was overwhelmed when I discovered the breadth of work that Southern Brooks were involved in and it quickly become obvious how much the local people rely on and use the services provided by this outstanding charity. I was impressed by the number of volunteers who work to provide these available services, and the hugely positive impact that Southern Brooks makes on the lives of both the very young and the elderly. This really is a charity making an enormous difference and I was extremely pleased that all the candidates I approached about Southern Brooks showed a real passion and drive to want to help and support them. The appointed candidates have been able to demonstrate how they can transfer their skill sets with compassion and I am delighted to have had the opportunity to support Southern Brooks.”

Jules Moore, Chair, commented:

“Southern Brooks Community Partnerships had reached a turning point in its development and we needed some highly skilled and committed Trustees for the Board. Moon did a thorough job of researching the charity and discussing our needs before starting the search for us and we were absolutely delighted with the quality and breadth of experience of the candidates they found for us. We couldn’t have done it without them.”