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STiR CEO Sharath Jeevan writes a personal note to explain some global leadership changes at STiR, and an evolution in his own role.
Firstly, we’re very sad to announce the departure of Tomos Davies, our Chief Operating Officer. This is a big loss for STiR, and we’d like to thank Tomos for everything he’s done to increase our organisational maturity and professionalism over the past three years. Tomos is moving to become Chief Operating Officer at Frontline, a UK charity working to transform the lives of vulnerable children by recruiting and developing social workers, and he will take up this role in mid-May.
We have decided not to replace Tomos directly. Instead, we are pleased to welcome Philip Rand as a part-time COO from this month. Philip is a current member of our Finance Committee with more than 30 years of global finance experience, and will provide support to our Global Finance, Administration and Operations teams.
We have also promoted Jenny Willmott, our Uganda Country Director, to the role of Senior Director of Programme Delivery. Jenny is currently on maternity leave, but her new role will oversee our portfolio of existing and new countries to ensure consistent programme quality, strong government relationships and support for our global team. Jenny will continue to be based in Kampala.
We’re pleased to announce promotions to full Director level for Nithya Gurukumar (Director of Donor Partnerships), Rein Terwindt (Director of Monitoring, Evaluation and Research) and John McIntosh (Director of Design and Programme Readiness). This ensures parity across the Global Leadership Team and reflects the importance of these central functions as we grow into new countries and build a truly ‘glocal’ organisation that balances appropriate country autonomy with global consistency.
I also wanted to share a personal update. In recent months, I’ve had some honest coaching discussions with the Board around my own role at STiR. As we expand to new countries and deepen our partnerships with governments, our organisation is becoming increasingly mature and complex, and will need a greater focus on internal management and consistency. As you know, I am personally more energised by the external relationships and entrepreneurial side of our work, which play better to my strengths. I’ve also always been highly conscious of the risks of “Founder’s Syndrome” in our sector, and want to ensure that I put the needs of the organisation above my own emotional attachment.
I am therefore planning an evolution into a Founder & President (Senior Advisor) role at STiR, supporting a new CEO to be recruited externally in the coming months. I will continue to support the organisation to open new doors, develop and deepen our existing external relationships, and ensure that we stay true to our values. Over time – once my successor is in place – I intend to decrease my involvement in day-to-day activities to approximately one day per week, allowing for a gradual and stable transition. This approach is also in line with the growing evidence around what makes Founder successions effective.
In a personal (non-STiR) capacity, I want to use the free time this releases to develop new entrepreneurial solutions around how we can use intrinsic motivation to solve some of our most important social problems, through a new social Lab – Intrinsic Labs – that I will be setting up. It follows the interest I gained in this field while writing a book around the wider topic of intrinsic motivation in modern life, which is being published by Hachette next year.
It has been an incredible, winding adventure leading this organisation and I’m so proud of everything that we’ve achieved – from 25 teachers in Delhi in 2012 to more than 200,000 today across India and Uganda, and with imminent expansion into two new geographies. And I’m excited to continue to be part of this journey into the future, in support of our outstanding leadership and wider team. But this feels like the right time to take this step, and find an amazing new CEO to lead us on the next stage of our journey.
We’d love to hear if you know anyone who might be suitable for the CEO role. We are currently in the process of selecting an external search firm and will share any leads with them.
Thank you so much for your ongoing support of STiR – I’m really looking forward to continuing to work together throughout this period, and of course as my role evolves in the future.
Best wishes and I hope to speak again soon.
Sharath Jeevan
CEO, STiR Education