Earlier this year, Kris Coppock rejoined the Five Talents team as Co-CEO alongside Rachel. In this blog, Kris and Rachel share what Co-CEO-ing looks like in practice, why Five Talents decided to adopt this model - and how it is going so far.
The Five Talents UK team at their 2023 Team Away Day.
The Co-CEO leadership model is gaining traction in both the commercial and charity sectors. Big names such as Oracle and Goldman Sachs have tried it, alongside several charity sector organisations from Alzheimer’s and Dementia Support Services to the Royal Cornwall Museum - although it’s fair to say it is still a relatively rare leadership model. There is some scepticism about whether 'power-sharing' ever works, and concern that it creates confusion amongst staff and customers / supporters as to:
'Who is really in charge?'
The answer for Five Talents is that we are both, jointly, fully and equally, in charge. How does that work in practice? Day to day, we've shared up the operational, programmatic and management responsibilities so that we each lead on different functional areas. However, we share the responsibility for strategy, leadership, philanthropy, compliance and team welfare, and we're jointly accountable to the Board, our supporters and programme members.
What’s the win for Five Talents here?
Kris: As one of our Trustees put it, ‘as Co-CEOs, you’re more than a CEO’. They were (positively and helpfully) highlighting that we will need to do more, and achieve more, than a single CEO. This is ideal for Five Talents as we’re in a season of growth. Between now and 2027, we’re looking to double our income to £2.2m, so we can double the number of members in partner programmes each year to 60,000. It’s exciting, and a privilege, to work together to achieve this.
Rachel: First, as Kris said, double the fire power! Of course we have different strengths so together, we can do more, better. Secondly, organisational resilience - personnel risk is always red-rated in small, lean but growing charities like ours and this structure mitigates the risk significantly. Thirdly, Kris brings fresh energy and ideas. Having done the CEO role solo for a few years, I was keen to ensure our creativity kept fizzing and we didn't get stuck in any ruts. It’s also great to share the load, and I was able to take a wonderful month's sabbatical when Kris came back!
What are the risks?
Rachel: I think it would feel much riskier to become Co-CEO with a stranger - but because Kris and I have worked closely together previously at Five Talents, we knew it would work. We trust and respect each other's judgement and can back each other’s decisions because we know that we share the values of putting Five Talents' mission and people first. There's no ego or sense of competition.
We did identify the risk that with two co-CEOs, staff or supporters might be confused as to which of us they should approach for what. Perhaps in some organisations, there could be a risk of ‘If mum says no, ask dad!’ but that was never a risk for Five Talents because our team is mature, cohesive yet diverse and always ready to innovate; they were all in favour of moving to the Co-CEO model when we were exploring it. To avoid confusion, we have been clear on dividing our areas of responsibility - but we’ve also been very clear that either of us can cover for the other.
Kris: Yes, and that actually makes Five Talents more efficient. We identified a risk of inefficiency if staff felt they needed both of us to take a decision. So we made it clear that either of us could make decisions on behalf of both. So if one of us is away or tied up, the other can cover and sign off whatever is required.
Similarly, we foresaw a risk of inefficiency if both of us, for example, attended certain meetings or spent time discussing an issue that only needed one of us to take a lead on. So now we make sure we only collaborate and confer when two heads really are better than one. We've always been an inclusive team so we're both often collaborating with others in the team rather than each other anyway.
Finally, there is a risk we might disagree over something significant. That hasn’t happened yet (ever - remarkably), but we believe that if it does, we’ll ‘disagree well’ internally and be able to present a united front externally. Our team culture helps; we have a very open, constructive-criticism culture so we’re all used to sharing ideas and feedback in order to reach a better conclusion. The trust, respect and shared values Rachel mentioned are key here too.
5+4 not 1+1!
We both feel privileged to lead Five Talents and keen to do more! But the real story here is not 1+1, it's 5+4.
Kris joined the team in a period when we took on 3 other new colleagues, going from 5.4 FTE to 9 FTE in the space of a few months. It's a bold move in a tough economic climate - but Five Talents has an ambitious strategic growth plan to double the number of Savings Group members we serve each year over the next five years - and to achieve that, we need a bigger team.
We know the Five Talents model works (our recent Burundi impact evaluation evidences that); it's a hugely effective, community-led approach to sustainable development and we know there is huge demand for it as communities across eastern Africa negotiate climate change, conflict and high costs of living. We're determined to grow in order to meet some of that demand - and that means taking on more staff.
Sharing the leadership is a part of the plan, but we’re blessed that we have an absolutely fantastic team, our wonderful supporters and of course our Partners and Savings Group members themselves - and they are the real success factors.