Expressions of interest and nominations to join us as a Guardian or Board Member due by 20 September 2022
In a time that requires extraordinary adaptability and nimbleness the GRLI Foundation has responded with the necessary agility whilst maintaining a steady footing. Our Foundation’s Board and our Guardian group (the Partner representative body looking after our guiding principles and ways of working), have ensured that we maintain a high standard of institutional governance, that our operation is efficient and nimble and our financial management robust and prudent. The GRLI is at the forefront of ensuring that the vehicle for its work is fit for purpose, minimally equipped and sufficiently robust.
During recent years, the Partner and Associate institutions, in deep collaboration with our Board and Guardians, have consolidated our actions and mode of engagement. In a move towards radical transparency and openness, we continually prioritise and publish the key pathways of our work and the supporting actions on an external “What’s Important Now?” dashboard. There we have logged and continue to track actions which help scale our impact without growing our core capacity. Some examples include the formation of partner pod events, the courageous conversation series, our continued support and development of a global Deans Cohort and the establishment of a Shared Learning Module on Global Responsibility co-presented in the pilot phase by 7 Partners and Associates of the GRLI.
One key pathway of our work is the continued maintenance and renewal of the GRLI’s governance vehicle, and so the time has come for us to seek new Board Members and Guardians and, from June 2023, a new Chair of the Board to take us into an exciting and critical phase in the life of the Foundation. We are strong enough to continue with our work but also ready to do so in a different way. Our Board and Guardian group know there is an essential urgency to promote and extend deep systemic change across three domains: how we live and make a living, how we learn and facilitate learning, and how we lead. This emergent paradigm represents a shift in consciousness and action that spans “I” to “We”, to “All of Us”. Governance of the GRLI Foundation is ultimately about stewarding the work and the entity to the extent the entity needs to enable the work.
As stewards of the GRLI, our Partners know that great minds think differently and need to work with questions for which there are no easy answers. The GRLI welcomes rigorous governance and oversight in order to ensure financial viability, while maintaining our values of transparency, fairness, freedom, honesty, solidarity, tolerance and humanity as the golden thread running through every decision and action.
The core work of the Board and Guardians is the reconciliation of value propositions, managing accountability, discerning and framing adaptive issues, and making sense of complex circumstances. As the work of the GRLI evolves and the wider context shifts, so too will the role the Guardians play. The primary focus will move even closer towards developing a robust and dynamic network, sustaining relationships, connection and facilitating shared learning. The Guardians will be looking out towards the Partnership as whole, whilst maintaining a necessary and much valued internal support system to and for each other.
To assist you in understanding more about what these roles entail, please see two living documents, the Governance Framework and Guardian Group Terms of Reference, which are designed to assist the Board and Guardian group (as Council representatives) in their governing role. These are updated on an ongoing basis as our work and role evolves. They represent the GRLI’s statement of its position on corporate governance at any point in time.
If you are a Partner of the GRLI and want to be at the forefront of shaping the governance of the GRLI for a radically changing landscape, either as a Board Member or a Guardian please submit your expression of interest/nominations by 20 September using the online application for consideration.
Applications will be considered at the next meeting of the Board. New Board Members Elect and Guardians Elect will assume duties on 30 November.
