Chief Executive Officer
The board may appoint a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to implement corporate policy and business plans. The powers of the CEO are defined in Clause/Article 20, and Governing Body members have the power to further define the authority of the CEO. If no CEO is in post, the Director with the most Labour Shares assumes the role (V3.0/3.1) or is elected by the Board of Directors (V3.2).
It is not required that a CEO be appointed. The board has the power to appoint an Executive Team instead of, or as well as, a CEO. A precedent for this has been established by the UK's largest bona fide worker co-operative (Suma Wholefoods) who elect an executive team comprised of six members who perform managerial duties for one day a week, and resume their non-managerial duties for the remainder of the week. Similar accounts have been given in studies of successful voluntary sector organisations where the fortunes of an organisation improved dramatically when a CEO was not replaced. Role responsibilities can be allocated to pairs or small groups of members.
Lastly, Social Enterprise Europe Ltd gives advice on an approach to governance where governance and management responsibilities are distributed to defined committees, and every working member is a member of two committees. This has the effect of distributing executive responsibility to members who work in pairs and report to relevant Board Committees. This approach maximises member participation in governance.
Return to the FairShares Glossary.
