Member Article

SJOG Bolsters Board and Senior Team Thanks to Support from Experience Bank Group

A charity that believes in the potential of people has brought about significant change thanks to recruitment support from Experience Bank Group.

Over the last 18 months, Experience Bank Group has been integral to bringing new talent to SJOG (St John of God), introducing new board and senior team leaders to the team.

The charity, which has its head office in Darlington, creatively supports and helps people in the way they want to be helped, across the UK. The range of services support disabled people, older communities, those who are homeless, and people who have been subject to modern day slavery.

Paul Bott, chief executive of SJOG, was brought to the charity by Peter Neal of Experience Bank Group as it looked to move into a more dynamic phase. The board decided that as the charitable world was changing quickly it needed steer from a more business focused individual. Paul explains:

“SJOG is a fantastic charity, we try to follow the example of our founder, St John of God, to ‘do good’ and add new stories to his 500 year legacy. The world has turned again and we needed to compliment the current Trustees skills and experience to ensure the charity stayed current.

“We are delighted, thanks to Peter and Experience Bank Group, to finalise the current review on the skills in our team and welcome three new board members. With their mix of legal backgrounds, all three are immediately making an impact. We’re really pleased to welcome Sophie Robinson-Davies, Roisin O’Donnell and Duncan Reid to the Board.”

In the search for the right board members, Peter took on board the challenge to find younger board members, and to bring more gender equality. He brought a good mix of candidates for consideration, with six being interviewed. Paul said:

“Every candidate met the brief and we were really impressed with the calibre, and we’ll continue to work with Peter to ensure that we have a diverse range of skills, knowledge and backgrounds on the board

“I would recommend Peter to anyone looking to strengthen their organisation, be it public, private or third sector. He appreciates good people, and has successfully found people who align with our aims, and what we are trying to achieve at SJOG. I’m confident that we’ll be better because of this. .”

Paul has also focused on bringing in a more diverse leadership team and worked with Peter to also appoint COO Lisa Alcorn and CFO, Leanne Welford. This work undertaken by this team has been recognised in national awards including Charity Change Project of the Year, Finance Team of the Year, and the Care Sector Leadership Award, but most importantly is now financially healthy and being of more help to more people .

Experience Bank Group incorporates The Experience Bank social enterprise company (philanthropic support), along with a commercial venture providing two, symbiotic services - EB Board Level Recruitment and EB High Performing Boards.

With this combination of specialist expertise, Experience Bank Group is uniquely positioned to help organisations ensure they have not only the right skills in the boardroom but also optimum board performance with higher value creation.

For founding entrepreneurs and small charities, the social enterprise company, The Experience Bank, has a carefully curated network of inspiring, experienced people who can add value to many start-up businesses and small charities, and can match entrepreneurs to non-execs who support businesses to become investment-ready or to successfully achieve the next phase of commercialisation.

5% of all revenue from Experience Bank Group is gifted to The Experience Bank social enterprise to enable more start-ups, early stage businesses, charities and social enterprises access to top notch, non-executive talent.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Anna Toms .