Success on the Board: ‘one of the most rewarding parts of my job’

As Head of the Executive and Governance Office at Newcastle University, I work closely with senior leaders in management and governance. I support and am present in board meetings where the challenging conversations take place and where the big decisions are made. I have a key role in creating an appropriate environment for, and fostering a culture of, effective governance.  

Equality, diversity and inclusion - one of our University’s core values - is a vital ingredient in that culture. At Newcastle we have a deep commitment to this and are constantly looking to improve. Looking across the sector, too, there is much to inspire us in this work: helpful resources and colleagues at other universities and sector bodies sharing knowledge and practice. 

Good intentions 

My personal philosophy is to use my privileged position and platform for influence as a force for good. It’s about taking responsibility, motivated by an intention to help and to do the right thing. It is an approach that involves supporting consistently, encouraging gently, and influencing thoughtfully.  

As a governance professional, I am able to fashion opportunities for reflection on enhancing diversity, inclusion and representation, by furnishing managers and governors with relevant knowledge and data. And I can take part myself in informal conversations that facilitate others to have the confidence to challenge.  

Impact 

That sounds okay in theory, I hear you say, but what impact have these intentions actually had? 

In terms of culture and environment, we are educating ourselves, with the executive team engaged in an ongoing programme of training, encompassing sessions on inclusive language, white privilege, allyship, implicit bias and microaggressions, and understanding and supporting our neurodiverse colleagues. This will inform how we continue to adapt induction and ongoing briefing for governors, itself an action point from our most recent external governance review. 

With the wider university community, we are doing more to promote representation on committees. We are sharing information more widely than before, raising awareness and improving the visibility of our governance activity, and supporting colleagues to feel seen and heard. We aim to build engagement across the University community in the hope that colleagues from all backgrounds feel encouraged to think about membership of committees as something for them: where they can both add value and derive it for themselves. 

All being well, their experience will inspire them in turn to apply for board membership and/or senior leadership roles. Amplifying the voices of colleagues from minoritised backgrounds who have already blazed a trail is critical here. It is all about maintaining and strengthening the inclusion pipeline, because this will improve the quality of organisational decision-making. 

Annual diversity survey 

Another recent initiative is the introduction of an annual diversity survey that members of Council are asked to complete on a voluntary basis. The survey asks governors to share information about some of their protected characteristics, but also other characteristics which may provide an intersectional lens, such as social background. When aggregated, the data is provided to Council’s Nominations Committee to inform its discussions around recruitment of external board members.  

Somewhat frustratingly, we have not yet managed a 100% survey completion rate, but we will continue with that gentle encouragement!  

Success on the Board programme 

Looking outside the University, we have been immensely privileged to support colleagues participating on Advance HE’s Success on the Board programme, funded by Wellcome.  

I must say it is one of the most rewarding parts of my job! This has involved facilitating staff from Newcastle and other UK universities to observe at meetings of our governing board, again, ensuring that they feel welcomed and part of a safe environment where they can offer us their open and honest feedback about their experience. We prize such feedback and adapt our practice in response.  

This year it has been my pleasure to serve as an institutional champion for one Success on the Board participant, and we have reflected together on some of the major priorities for the higher education sector, from traditional governing body fare - financial sustainability - to what is perhaps a more hopeful topic - how to centre marginalised and minoritised voices in decision-making. 

Student governors 

I think an unswerving commitment to openness, dialogue and co-creation, are wholly essential to governance. This academic year I have made it a priority to bring this to bear in the support that we offer to our student governors.  

Following discussions with Students’ Union sabbatical officers and staff, we agreed to hold pre-meets before each Senate and Council. These provide opportunity to talk through the agenda, to exchange insights on how items of business have reached the senior committees, and to preview how the discussion might play out. They have also created an alternative space for the sabbatical officers to think about how they might contribute in formal meetings.  

From this partnership came the idea for a speed networking session for members of Council and Students’ Union representatives. 

Our pre-meet discussions have been mutually supportive and refreshingly candid. They will stand all of us in good stead for future conversations about representation. 

Building meaningful change 

Reflecting on the above summary, I’m proud of the progress we have made. I believe that it is making a difference for colleagues. All the same, the pace of change with equality, diversity and inclusion work can be frustrating at times. The correct response is just to keep on going, to keep trying, to focus on building something, action by action. Because I am a firm believer that all of these behaviours and actions generate ripples of change that, alongside the activities of other similarly committed colleagues, can build towards meaningful change. 

Simon Meacher is Head of the Executive and Governance Office at Newcastle University, where he is Secretary to the Executive Board, supports the operation of the institution’s governing body, and manages a unit responsible for strategic risk, business continuity, and information governance.