I Have A Voice will be led by a co-CEO model

Leadership in the non-profit sector has always demanded something extraordinary. You are simultaneously strategist, fundraiser, advocate, employer, and public face — all in service of a mission that matters deeply.  

At I Have A Voice (IHAV), an organisation dedicated to tackling political inequality by equipping young people with the tools, confidence and knowledge to engage with democracy, we are about to make a deliberate and considered change to the way we lead. After a year of working closely together, Rebecca as Founder and Director, Amelia as Deputy CEO, we are moving to a co-CEO model. In this article we explain why, what we have learned, and why we believe this model deserves broader consideration. 

The evidence is compelling 

A study of 87 companies led by co-CEOs, published in the Harvard Business Review, found that those organisations tended to generate better returns than peer companies with a single CEO. More recently, the Harvard Business Review has highlighted that the benefits of dual leadership arrangements include leveraging complementary expertise, enhancing organisational resilience, improving real-time decision quality, and smoothing succession planning.  

Some of the most compelling long-term examples come from outside the charity sector, but the lessons translate. Natalie Campbell, CEO of Belu, a British social enterprise that donates its net profits to clean water and environmental projects, chose to split the top job with a colleague six months into her tenure. The model worked, she explained, because of clearly defined roles and responsibilities, and because both leaders were willing to be genuinely vulnerable about their strengths and weaknesses from the outset. 

This makes sense for us and for IHAV 

For us, the decision to move to a co-CEO structure was both a practical and a values-based one. 

From the start, both of us have worked part-time at IHAV. That is not incidental. We each hold other commitments and roles beyond the organisation that we believe actively enrich what we bring to IHAV.  

The co-CEO model also formalises what has already been true in practice: that we lead this organisation together, across everything, because in a small team there is no other way. We are both across every project, every relationship, every strategic decision. The question was never whether we were sharing leadership - it was whether our job titles reflect our working arrangements and how we work together. 

From a values perspective, co-leadership reflects something we believe in deeply – flexible working arrangements have the potential to improve gender diversity in leadership roles. 

Crucially, this was not a decision taken lightly or in haste. We have spent the last year working side by side - learning each other's working styles, understanding where our perspectives converge and diverge, and establishing the rhythms and norms that make collaboration effective. 

How we’ll put this into practice 

Here is what we are doing to make this work in practice. 

• Updated our scheme of delegation. Being clear about who holds accountability for what is foundational. We have revised our scheme of delegation to reflect the co-CEO structure, ensuring that individual and joint accountabilities are explicitly defined. Where we operate as a team, that is explicit. Where one of us holds individual accountability, that is equally clear. 

• Invested time in understanding how we work together. A year of working alongside each other has been invaluable. We share similar professional backgrounds, both of us having worked extensively in policy and advocacy, but we approach problems differently, and we have learned to see that difference as a resource rather than a friction. The quality of decisions improves when you can bounce around ideas, constructively provide feedback and thrash out solutions to problems with someone else with the same level of responsibility. 

• Worked with our advisory board on governance. We have not done this in isolation. Our advisory board has been a critical sounding board, helping us think through what governance structures need to be in place to support the model. This includes how we make decisions together, how we communicate as a leadership team, and how we manage accountability. We’re putting everything in place that we feel confident will mean we succeed, but we’ve also put in place processes now should things not go as we hope, so that IHAV is protected and so are each of us. 

• Established clear communication protocols. Stakeholders, funders, and partners need confidence that the organisation has coherent, consistent leadership. We have agreed how we present externally, hence this article, and how we keep each other informed so that neither of us is ever meaningfully out of the loop. 

Why we wanted to use this opportunity to promote job sharing to others 

The non-profit sector asks a lot of its leaders. The demands and skillset needed are broad, the resources are constrained, and the stakes for the communities we serve can be high. Burnout among charity leaders and founders is a genuine and under-discussed problem. For many in these positions it isn’t just about the bottom line or career progression, it’s about creating meaningful change on an issue that you feel truly passionate about, which makes the setbacks feel deeply personal and the line between work and non-work life difficult to draw. 

Mabel Abraham, a researcher at Columbia Business School, found that the co-CEO model can reduce burnout at the leadership level. In a sector where retaining experienced leaders is both critical and challenging, reducing burnout matters. 

There are also diversity arguments worth making. Senior leadership in the non-profit sector, as in many others, has historically skewed toward those who can sustain the demands of a full-time, all-consuming top role without significant competing priorities. A co-CEO or job-share model can make senior leadership more accessible to people who have caring responsibilities, health considerations, or portfolio careers all without compromising on the depth of experience or commitment they bring. 

It is not going to be without its challenges 

We want to be clear about the challenges from the outset and mitigate them now as much as we can. 

Shared leadership requires sustained investment in communication. The structures we have put in place are not a one-time exercise they need to be maintained, reviewed, and refreshed. Decision-making can slow if the model is not well-designed; we have worked hard to ensure ours is effective and proportionate.  

The relationship between co-leaders also requires genuine care. It works best when there is mutual respect, compatible values, honest communication and, critically, the psychological safety to disagree. Having worked together already we know that we can do this and appreciate that each of us is always thinking what’s best for IHAV. 

An invitation 

We are sharing this publicly because we believe the sector benefits from hearing about different models of leadership, including the reasoning, the preparation, and the practicalities. Too often, the way organisations are led is treated as a given rather than a choice. 

We are making a choice. We are making it with care, with evidence, and with conviction that two voices at the top of I Have A Voice is exactly the right way to lead an organisation whose entire purpose is to show that everyone's voice matters. 

We would welcome conversations with others in the sector who are exploring similar models, or who have questions about what we have put in place. This is a learning journey, and the more openly we share it, the more we all benefit. 

Rebecca Deegan is the Founder of I Have A Voice, a CIC that brings political professionals into classrooms to equip young people with the tools and confidence to engage with democracy. Amelia Christie brings over 15 years of experience in social change advocacy including senior roles at UNICEF UK and leading RESULTS International in Australia.