Chief Executives

Job purpose

To determine and formulate the organisation's policies and provide its overall direction within the guidelines set by a board of directors or similar governing body, and to plan, direct and coordinate operational activity at the highest level through subordinate executives and managers, so that the organisation meets its objectives and sustains its performance, compliance and standing.

Skills

• Command of business and management principles across strategic planning, resource allocation, leadership and coordination of people and resources, together with economics and accounting, human resources, governance and company law, regulation, and the sector, market and political context. Graduate-level education is usual — most postholders hold a master's or higher — with extensive experience, commonly more than five years; the role assumes the required expertise is already held.
• Confers with board members, officials and staff to resolve problems; presides over or serves on boards and governing committees; acts as liaison between the organisation, shareholders and outside bodies; negotiates and approves contracts with suppliers, distributors and government agencies; interprets and explains policies, rules and laws to organisations, officials and individuals; and delivers speeches, writes articles and presents at conventions. Guides, directs, motivates and develops the executive team.
• Sets direction where no precedent exists. Analyses operations to evaluate the performance of the organisation and its staff against objectives and to identify cost reduction, programme improvement or policy change, and implements corrective action plans, weighing financial, legal, competitive, reputational and human consequences under uncertainty. Decisions are strategic, contested and difficult to reverse.
• Directs, plans and implements policies, objectives and activities to sustain operations, maximise returns and increase productivity; establishes departmental responsibilities and coordinates functions across departments and sites; appoints department heads and delegates to them; prepares budgets for approval; and coordinates budgetary control, record-keeping and administrative control systems. Plans over long horizons while managing immediate demands.
• Work is carried out in meetings, at external engagements and at a desk. No manual handling or dexterity demands.

Responsibilities

• Directs human resources activity including approval of HR plans, selection of directors and other senior staff, and establishment of major departments; appoints department heads and managers and delegates responsibility to them; reviews their reports and requires changes; and is ultimately accountable for the whole workforce, its structure, conduct and performance.
• Directs the organisation's financial and budget activities to fund operations, maximise investments and increase efficiency; prepares budgets for approval, including for programme funding; negotiates and approves contracts; and may direct activity involving investment products or financial services. Commits and answers for the organisation's funds within the authority delegated by the governing body.
• Directs, at a remove, activity concerned with production, pricing, sales and distribution, and approves promotional campaigns. Day-to-day custody of premises, plant and equipment sits with subordinate managers; ordinary care of own workstation.
• Accountable for the information on which the organisation and its stakeholders rely. Prepares and presents reports on activities, expenses, budgets and statutory or regulatory matters; coordinates record-keeping and administrative control systems; represents the organisation publicly to shareholders and outside bodies; and holds the most sensitive strategic, financial and personal information, where disclosure or error carries consequences at organisational scale.

Effort required

• Continuous strategic judgement under uncertainty across finance, operations, people, regulation and external relations simultaneously, with constant switching between unrelated high-consequence matters and little protected time. Decisions rest on incomplete information, are difficult to reverse, and are scrutinised by the board, shareholders, regulators, staff and often the public.
• Carries personal accountability for organisational outcomes and for decisions affecting large numbers of people, including restructuring and senior appointments and departures. Resolves complaints and violations, conducts or directs investigations and hearings and may testify at them, negotiates contentious agreements, and represents the organisation publicly where scrutiny may be adversarial. Requires resilience and composure while remaining visibly steady for the organisation.
• Seated and standing work across meetings, engagements and desk work, with movement between locations. No lifting or exertion; the demand lies in duration rather than intensity.

Working conditions

• Primarily an indoor office environment without physical hazard, but markedly more exposed than the other roles in this group: the postholder works regularly away from base at board and committee meetings, hearings, investigations, council meetings and conventions, and in public or semi-public settings when speaking or representing the organisation. The demand is predominantly psychosocial and considerable — sustained scrutiny from board, shareholders, regulators, staff and public, and adversarial encounters in which the postholder personally carries the organisation's position.
• The agenda is set by external events rather than by the postholder — board and committee cycles, council meetings, regulatory demands, contract negotiations, investigations and organisational crises — so planned work is routinely displaced and the role must remain reachable across them. Holds the widest discretion in the organisation, constrained only by the guidelines of the governing body, while remaining answerable to that body for everything that happens within the organisation.