EY – John Liver

The roles

Both John Liver, Senior Executive at EY, and Dan Fletcher, Senior Fundraising Consultant at Moore Kingston Smith, joined the board of Rethink Mental Illness, a charity which aims to improve the lives of people severely affected by mental illness through our network of local groups and services. John?s role was to use his regulatory and risk expertise to advise the charity, whilst Dan was selected because of the wealth of fundraising experience he brought to the role.

Dates

2018 – present

The impact for Rethink Mental Illness

The charity benefited hugely from two senior, experienced trustees. John’s regulatory expertise meant he was able to offer strategic input across a range of challenges for the charity, whilst Dan’s knowledge in addressing the practicalities of charity governance was an invaluable support to the charity at a time of organisational change.

The impact for the trustees

Both trustees benefited greatly from the skills exchange between business and charity. John, having gained a more solid understanding of the mental health challenges the charity was set up to support, was able to advise EY’s internal mental health network. For Dan, having experience at the coalface of a busy charity has helped keep in touch with the day-to-day challenges of charity leadership which has benefitted his consultancy business hugely.

Rethink Mental Illness’ story

Rethink Mental Illness is a charity set up to improve the lives of people severely affected by mental illness through campaigning, a network of support groups and varied services, which include nursing homes, employment services and advocacy.

The charity has a strong reputation for creating change and it gets called on regularly by MPs for support on speeches and select committees. 

With this high profile comes increased risk and the charity wanted to strengthen its approach to risk management by bringing new business skills and commercial thinking to the organisation. At the same time, the charity wanted to focus on its fundraising abilities and required strategic support in reviewing this.

The charity approached Trustees Unlimited who put forward a number of excellent candidates, including EY’s senior executive John Liver and Dan Fletcher, a senior fundraising consultant.

Preparing the trustee with Step on Board 

John was recruited through the Step on Board programme run by Trustees Unlimited for EY. Trustees Unlimited spent time understanding John’s motivations, aspirations and skillset in order to match him with the right charity. The 1-2-1 sessions enable the trustee to ask questions and meet other trustees to gain a fuller understanding of what the role would entail.

John says the process was helpful in not only formulating his CV but also his thinking so he had a clear view of the kind of charity he wanted to support and how he could use his skills in order to best support them.

This experience for the trustee was echoed by Liz Gray, the Partner Transitions Lead at EY, who was responsible for introducing the programme to the business. She said “The education that Trustees Unlimited could offer us was really clear upfront. They set expectations for the partners getting involved so they knew exactly what their commitment would be.”

An enriching experience

For John, as someone who is in a senior position in his professional career, becoming a trustee has been an enriching experience, both professionally and personally. Professionally, it has given him board exposure and experience in dealing with issues and opportunities from an executive perspective. Whilst personally, it has been an opportunity to use skills accumulated over a lifetime of business experience to give back to society and experience a different world view.

John says he is proud to work for a company such as EY which sends a strong message to senior people in its business that they value employee’s broader role in society and support them taking time out to do something they care about.

The knowledge exchange between charity and business

John’s exposure to Rethink Mental Illness’ work led him to become a partner sponsor of EY’s internal mental health network. By giving the network his expert support and senior sponsorship within the business, he helped drive its profile and engaged more employees. 

Supporting and improving mental health is increasingly a focus in the commercial banking world and John has found that clients are receptive to hear of his engagement with Rethink Mental Illness and the learnings he has brought back to EY, demonstrating that the business cares about its people and its obligations to the wider community.

Access to specialist risk management skills 

John?s day job with EY is regulatory consulting in the city for banks, so he is well-versed in being in an environment with the responsibility to manage risk appropriately and deal with the regulators openly. This background has enabled him to encourage Rethink Mental Illness to think more about their governance and risk management. 

He introduced a series of initiatives which helped professionalise the risk management of the charity, making risk management more predictable. This included conducting risk analysis of more peripheral parts of the charity. This has been critical in helping protect the charity during challenging and turbulent times, by encouraging them to look at things like their reserves.

A trustee sounding board

Dan joined Rethink Mental Illness at a time when the organisation wanted to develop its approach to fundraising. Dan’s role was to act as a sounding board for the team – helping fellow board members understand and deal with key issues. His experience of the practicalities around charity governance, was invaluable in helping the organisation review its fundraising plans.

Dan says: “As a trustee, you can only spend a limited amount of time with the organisation. You can’t get too operational so it forces you to take a strategic view and work out how you can add value at arm’s length. My job is to provide a steer, support and objectivity as the organisation processes change.”

Bringing credibility to your career

Dan has been a consultant for eight years and works closely with charity leaders and trustees. He has found that his experience working with Rethink Mental Illness has helped build his credibility with clients as he is better able to put himself in their shoes and have a greater understanding of what it is like to be a charity leader managing multiple pressures. He says: “As a consultant, there’s always the danger that you forget what it is like at the coalface. This experience keeps me in touch with the issues around governance that are important to charities and therefore makes me better at my day job too.”