Role Description

Chair

Remuneration: Unremunerated (reasonable expenses reimbursed)

Location: London

Time commitment: Around 2 days per month with a greater commitment in January leading up to and immediately after Holocaust Memorial Day.

Terms of reference: The term of office would be three years in the first instance, with the option for re-appointment for a second 3-year term (and to a third 3-year term in exceptional circumstances).

Key Responsibilities

The main responsibilities of the post are as follows:

External

1) To provide direction and leadership to HMDT, specifically to: 

  • work with the Board and CEO to build HMDT’s profile as the pre-eminent voice on Holocaust and genocide commemoration;

  • work with the Board and CEO to further embed HMD as a national, collective endeavour, and ensure HMDT is ‘taken to the next level’ as a nationally respected and widely known charity;

  • promote HMD and HMDT at a range of national and other events, through media activity and to stakeholders.

2) To guide HMDT through a changing external environment, specifically to:

  • consult, review and guide HMDT in dealing with a range of sensitive and demanding challenges;

  • oversee the management and communication of HMDT’s Experts’ Reference Group, Holocaust Survivors’ Legacy Consultative Group and Genocide Survivors’ Consultative Group;

  • ensure that while the Holocaust has, and always will have, primacy within HMD, that more recent genocides are also properly and fully commemorated and that current atrocities are recognised.

3) To work with the Board and CEO to:

  • inspire confidence in Ministers, civil servants and key stakeholders (including in the devolved governments within the UK) and be able to promote HMDT and the cause of HMD effectively;

  • take a leading role in fundraising for HMDT, with the support of the Chief Executive, the Chair of the Fundraising Committee and other trustees.

Internal

4) To lead the Board of Trustees in an inclusive and collegiate manner ensuring that it fulfils its responsibilities for the governance of the organisation;

  • To optimise the relationship between the Board of Trustees and the staff of HMDT;

  • To lead the Board in developing the organisation’s strategy and goals in accordance with its governing document, legal and regulatory guidelines;

  • To work in partnership with the Chief Executive, Deputy Chief Executive and Company Secretary to ensure that Board decisions are acted upon and the charity is managed effectively;

  • To work with the Board to ensure that HMDT provides public benefit and value for money, and to ensure that such provision is continuously monitored by the Board.

5) To support and line manage the Chief Executive.

Key Duties and Activities

Lead the Trustee Body

  • To chair meetings of the Board of Trustees and ensure that it functions effectively and efficiently;

  • To lead and help the Board to set HMDT’s overall strategy and policy objectives;

  • To ensure with the CEO that decisions taken at Board and Board sub-committee meetings are implemented;

  • To work with the CEO to develop appropriate and relevant agendas for meetings;

  • To oversee the recruitment of Trustees, and any other persons co-opted on to the Board, transparently and in accordance with HMDT’s equality and diversity policy;

  • To ensure that the Board regularly reviews its structure, role, relationship with staff and implements agreed changes as necessary;

  • To ensure a regular audit of trustee skills and experience, and to ensure that all trustees receive appropriate induction, advice, training and information relating to their role;

  • To oversee the operation and effectiveness of such Board sub-committees as the Board decides to establish to oversee specific areas of HMDT’s work, and to ensure that all such sub-committees have and adhere to terms of reference from their inception.

To work in partnership with the CEO and Deputy CEO to achieve HMDT’s mission, specifically:

  • ensuring that the Board reviews, updates and pursues a long-term strategy for the organisation with clear and measurable objectives;

  • monitoring progress against the HMDT’s overall strategic plan;

  • seeking to ensure that appropriate resources (personnel, financial, material) are secured with which to achieve HMDT’s agreed goals.

Optimise the relationship between the Board and HMDT’s staff and volunteers, specifically:

  • to ensure that HMDT has in place appropriate procedures and policies;

  • to ensure that HMDT complies with current employment and equal opportunities legislation and good practice;

  • to receive regular informal updates on the work of HMDT through regular discussions with the Chief Executive;

  • to report to the Board any concerns that staff may have in regard to the role of the Board, its sub-committees or members;

  • to ensure regular communication between the Board and its staff.

Some of the above duties above may be delegated to other Trustees, but it remains the responsibility of the Chair to ensure that such delegated responsibilities are carried out effectively.

Person Specification

Over and above specific skills, competencies and experience (below), we are looking for a Chair who has the ability and emotional intelligence to engage effectively and sympathetically with a very wide range of colleagues, stakeholders and opinion formers in an area which remains for many one of the most harrowing in human history.

More specifically we are looking for a Chair with many, if not all of the following skills and qualities;

Knowledge and Understanding:

  • Commitment to and understanding of HMDT and its work;

  • Commitment to HMDT’s values of knowledge, empathy and action;

  • Commitment to the Nolan principles of public life;

  • Understanding of the legal duties, responsibilities and liabilities of Trustees;

  • Understanding of what constitute potential and actual conflicts of interest;

  • Understanding of the challenges and sensitivities involved in HMDT’s work;

  • Knowledge of the Holocaust and more recent genocides

  • Knowledge of, and understanding and empathy towards, the UK’s Jewish community.

Specific Abilities/Qualities

  • Strategic vision;

  • Creative thinking;

  • Effective team working and the ability to work through consensus;

  • First class communication skills;

  • Openness and willing to learn;

  • Ability to gain the respect and trust of the Board of Trustees;

  • Passion, dedication and commitment to Holocaust and genocide education and commemoration.

Experience

  • Leadership;

  • Working as part of a committee;

  • Talking and responding to the media;

  • Chairing meetings;

  • Working with complex stakeholders including government; (or working with government at a senior level);

  • Revenue fundraising.

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