The Board recognises the need to bolster its technology, information security and wider outsourcing and resilience expertise to achieve an appropriate balance of skills and experience amongst its Non-Executive Directors.
Given the nature of Border to Coast's business, candidates must bring experience of working within a regulated sector environment, including telecoms, utilities or financial services. It would be advantageous for candidates to have had some recent UK regulated financial services experience, although this may have been gained in a non-executive or advisory capacity if they have spent their executive career in another regulated sector. Depth of relevant technology, outsourcing and resilience leadership experience will be seen as more important for this appointment than depth of financial services experience alone.
Candidates will bring a passion for digital innovation with demonstrable experience of creating a technology strategy and harnessing new, relevant technologies to improve ways of working and organisational effectiveness. They will also have experience of considering and responding to cyber security threats. Candidates must therefore bring prior senior experience leading or overseeing IT functions within UK regulated environments and will bring technical operational IT knowledge, able to advise on matters of cyber risk and security. This experience might have been gained in a specialist IT role e.g. Chief Technology Officer, Chief Information Officer, or in a broader executive management role with oversight for an IT / technology function working with outsourced infrastructure systems. Candidates may also have worked as a senior leader within a major IT services / outsourcing business, where they have worked extensively within regulated sectors.
Recency will be an important consideration; those who have not held a relevant executive role within the last five years will have operated in a relevant non-executive position where they are chairing a technology committee or equivalent or are leading the board on matters relating to technology development.
It is also important that candidates are able to demonstrate their appreciation of organisations with complex stakeholder environments, preferably where there is a political / public interest dimension. They will be able to demonstrate an appreciation for the pluralist nature of Border to Coast's Partner Funds. Regardless of sectoral background, it is important that candidates understand the complex stakeholder environment in which Border to Coast operates, and have an appreciation for, and affinity with, the public sector and in particular its need to strive for value for money and resilience in all its outsourced arrangements.
Given the highly UK-centric nature of the organisation, candidates will be UK-based.
Prior Non-Executive Director experience is not required. Those candidates who do not have prior non-executive experience must have had direct contact with the Board in their executive roles, interacting extensively with the Board. Candidates will be able to demonstrate their experience of contributing to strategy and board discussions in areas outside of their specialist focus and evidence an understanding of the differing roles of Non-Executive and Executive colleagues.
