Case study: Co-Chairs recruitment | Womankind Worldwide

Who

For over 30 years, Womankind Worldwide has worked in partnership to strengthen and support women’s rights organisations and movements with the resources they need to challenge oppression and change the lives of women, in the home, the workplace and the communities they live in.

Led by their partners, Womankind Worldwide builds successful projects and amplifies women’s voices. By taking collective action with women’s movements, they advocate for changes to laws and policies across the world that ensure women’s rights. Womankind Worldwide pushes for a world where women and girls and people of diverse genders don’t just survive but thrive.Womankind Worldwide acts as a force for change and works with women’s rights organisations and movements to end all forms of violence, advance economic rights and strengthen women’s influence and decision-making power.

Context

In 2023, Womankind Worldwide approached Peridot to support them in appointing a new Co-Chair to lead the board in partnership with their current Co-Chair, Twasiima Bigirwa. 2023 would bring change and transition for Womankind Worldwide as they appointed a new Co-Chair; their longstanding CEO would retire in the summer of 2023 after seven years leading the organisation; six new Trustees had been appointed to the board at the end of 2022, and were to be inducted; and Womankind Worldwide had developed and launched a new strategy for 2023-2030 which sees them working with partners to be more innovative and decolonise their practice, whilst learning and growing as a feminist and anti-racist organisation.

Womankind Worldwide is an intersectional, progressive, and inclusive organisation that celebrates a shared visionary feminist leadership model in line with its feminist principles.

Given our strong track record supporting organisations to appoint Chairs, Trustees, Treasurers, and Non-Executive Directors, and with our MD Grant Taylor’s direct experience as a Co-Chair, we were best placed to support Womankind Worldwide with this appointment.

Brief

Twasiima Bigirwa brings a range of expertise to Womankind Worldwide, so it was key to appoint a new Co-Chair with additional and different skills and experience, such as expertise in UK governance. It was important this person had operated internationally and had an appreciation and an unwavering commitment to shared leadership and the empowerment of women, girls and people of diverse genders. The new Co-Chair needed to bring an enthusiasm for board development, implementing strategy and enhancing board dynamics to support the board of Womankind Worldwide to continue to develop a high-performing board.

The style and approach were key, and the new Chair needed to be collegiate with a collaborative style, able to share power with others; someone who is self-reflexive, yet also challenging and able to act as a critical friend when appropriate.

To ensure the success of the co-chair model, we were looking for people who can share their vision of how they will take time with Twasiima to understand each other’s needs and clearly define the distribution of work and communication methods that will help set up the co-chairs for a successful term of shared leadership.