In Transition 1: Designing the process
Jess and Kamina talking to a member of the community at Rising’s 5th Birthday event in 2021.
This is the first part in a series of essays and reflections on the process of being in transition as we move from our current Co-Directors Euella Jackson and Jess Bunyan to recruiting new Co-Leaders through an open recruitment process for the first time.
In this blog post, Jess shares where we’ve gotten so far in our process of transition.
In the final hour of our Board Away Day in August 2024 we speedily sketched out a timeline for the transition process and when we came back from the Christmas break in January we quickly realised the impact of those dates becoming a reality as we move towards the Director transition for Rising in 2026.
Me and Euella have always known we would only be Co-Directors for up to five years and we’ve been talking about legacy since day one. As we start to think about the end of our term as Directors one of the big themes has been accessibility. Both in terms of how we do our work, but also who is able to access it. We’re still learning how to do this better, but it felt like an important milestone of everything our term has stood for, to design an open recruitment process for the next Directors. We want the amazing opportunity that we’ve had to be open to anyone who’s in a position to apply.
Jess and Euella presenting at Rising’s 6th Birthday in 2022.
This decision isn’t uncontroversial, even within our team, Board and Non-Execs we’ve had conversations about holding the tensions of doing things differently this time. Euella and I were asked by Rising’s Founder and then Director to become Co-Directors when we were already part of the team. We know there are people in the team and community who could do this role, but it feels morally and ethically important to do this in an open and transparent way. A way that gives those who haven’t made it into the Rising universe yet, and also for those that have, an equal opportunity to do the role and lead the future of Rising.
OUR STEERING GROUP
Part of mitigating these tensions has been to recruit a Steering Group to oversee the transition and take some of that responsibility away from me and Euella but also interrogate every element of the process. They are: Eli Lower, Gerald Richards, Matthew Austin, George Avill, Grace Quantock, Leena Bucknor and Mitul Shah, along with Rising’s Non-Executive Director Emily Williams. We have met twice now and already have a robust conflict procedure and a detailed recruitment process designed ahead of schedule. Giving this process over to a group of experts has been a massive relief to me and Euella but also a challenge to communicate how we work more.
Jess and members of the steering group designing the recruitment process in August 2025.
Through working together Gerald has already had his skepticism of co-leadership overturned by seeing how me and Euella work together, Mitul is consistently ensuring that what we’re talking about will make sense for the community in terms of how they go through the process but also follow it and Eli is bringing a blend of all the day 1 Rising lore with their experience of mediation (Eli and Grace developing a conflict process live was a personal highlight). It’s been amazing to see the thing we’ve thought about for so long become a tangible thing, to have a process! To start to plot a real timeline!
Our hope is that by sharing more throughout the developing process, others can see how our thinking evolves, why we’re doing certain things the way we’re doing them and how much thought and care has gone into it. We generally do that for everything at Rising and someone recently said our newsletter is one they try to read the most because it demonstrates the ‘how’ of the work so well. I guess we’re trying to live up to that by sharing more of that work in progress, step-by-step evolution.
THE PROCESS…
So here’s the recruitment process we’ve designed together:
Phase 1 – Individual Profiling
We’ll be asking people to apply as individuals but also put if there’s anyone they’d particularly like to be matched with and encourage people to have conversations about that before they apply
We’ll then shortlist for first stage interviews with individuals, we’re thinking around 12-15 people at this stage
Phase 2 – Matchmaking
Based on the applications and interviews we’ll then match around 4-5 pairs of potential Co-Directors
Anyone who hasn’t been matched at this stage will be invited to join a Leadership Pool who may rejoin the process later if any of the matches are unsuccessful and after recruitment we commit to working with this group specifically on leadership development and upskilling
We’ll set up meetings where we introduce the pairs to each other and suggest things they might want to talk about, then leave them to chat
Then we’ll check that they’ve passed the vibe check and they’re happy to continue in the process together, if not we’ll look at re-matching with people from the Leadership Pool and repeat the process until everyone is successfully matched
Phase 3 – Piloting
At this point everyone will be offered a stipend for their time to continue in the process
Each pair will be invited to a facilitated planning session of around 2 hours where we will guide them through exercises to develop a plan around their vision for Rising under their unique Co-Leadership, the idea is to give everyone an equal opportunity to do the work in the same timeframe and to observe how the pairs work together
After a bit of time for them to check in with each other we will then conduct 2nd stage interviews with them as pairs where they will present their vision and more specifically how they propose to enact it
Then the final Co-Directors will be selected and the unsuccessful candidates invited to join the Leadership Pool
IT’S A COMMITMENT FOR SURE…
We’re thinking the whole process will take 8 to 12 weeks from the date we close for applications in late-February to selecting the successful Co-Directors in May. It’s a commitment for sure, but it feels important to go on this journey with people and think about a process for recruiting co-directors that is accessible for anyone.
Questions we’ve interrogated so far:
What happens if a match falls apart?
What if a brilliant solo leader applies?
Can a recruitment process feel good even if you don’t get the job in the end?
While there are still some unknowns, we’re glad that we’ve been able to firm up a concrete process for how this will happen. We look forward to sharing this journey with you over the next few months.
We’re excited to see how the process unfolds. If you’re thinking about co-leadership or navigating an organisational transition at the moment, we’d love to chat.
Get in touch with Jess and Euella - jess@rising.org.uk and euella@rising.org.uk
