Chair of the Board of Trustees

We have an exciting leadership opportunity for a Chair of the Board of Trustees with a UK charity which has a proven international track record of making a real impact on the challenge of climate change.

Position: Chair of the Board of Trustees

Location: Anywhere in UK

Commitment: Up to 20 days annually

Expenses: Reasonable travel expenses

Closing Date: Friday 12th February

The Role

The Board of Trustees has recently agreed an ambitious new strategy for the charity and appointed a new Chief Executive to lead on its delivery. We are looking for a new chair to lead the work of the Board, replacing the co-founder and long-standing chair who will be retiring from the position.

The Chair will hold the Board and Executive Team to account for the organisations mission and vision, providing inclusive leadership to the Board of Trustees, ensuring that each trustee fulfils their duties and responsibilities for the effective governance of the charity. The Chair will also support, and, where appropriate, challenge the Chief Executive and ensure that the Board functions as a unit and works closely with the entire Executive of the charity to achieve agreed objectives. They will act as an ambassador and the public face of the charity, including developing and maintaining strong relationships with key funders, in partnership with the Chief Executive.

The role of the new Chair will be critically important to enable the charity to deliver its goals to:

• Support community projects that secure, and sustain over the long term, an area of tropical forest at least the size of Wales (2 million hectares)
• Support communities to grow at least 25 million trees by 2025
• Move Wales towards eliminating imported deforestation from our economy
• Inspire people across Wales to reduce their forest footprint, support tropical forests and take climate action.

Responsibilities include:

• Strategic leadership
• Governance
• External Relations
• Relationship with Board of Trustees
• Relationship with the Chief Executive and the wider management team

About You

As Chair of the Board, you will show a visible commitment to the organisation and offer a mind-set that challenges and encourages innovation and have the skills to lead a significant national organisation.

You will have:

• Experience operating at a senior strategic leadership level within an organisation
• A successful track record of achievement through your career
• Experience of charity governance and working with or as part of a Board of Trustees
• Experience of external relationship-building skills, delivering presentations and managing stakeholders
• Significant experience of chairing meetings and events

A willingness to commit the time to conduct the role well, including travel and attending occasional events out of office hours are essential to the position.

About the Organisation

The charity is an environmental organisation, focussed on mitigating climate change through protection of tropical forests and their communities in Africa, South America and South East Asia and through education and awareness-raising in Wales. The primary purpose is to secure, sustain and restore tropical forests through partnerships with indigenous and local communities. Since establishing as a charity in 2010, it helped protect 4 million hectares of tropical forest and provided over £3 million of grants to forest protection and tree planting projects. Within Wales the education programme has directly engaged with 120,000 young people through workshops, assemblies and events on rainforest and climate change issues. The Awareness programmes such as Go Green Day have had an extensive reach informing and influencing the wider community.

The charity welcomes applications from women, BAME community and a wide diversity of backgrounds. Any candidate offered the position of Chair of Size of Wales will be expected to agree to and adhere to Size of Wales’ Safeguarding policy and Code of Conduct.

You may also have experience in areas such as Chair, Chair Person, Trustee, Chair of the Board, Board Member, Environment, Environmental, Climate, Climate Change, Education, Wales, Welsh, Charity, Not for Profit, Sustainable, Programme, Green, Director, Head of, CEO, Chief Executive, COO, Governance, Policy, Research.