"As Co-Chair of Trustees, I was the principle point of contact between the Board and Felicia as our Interim CEO. It has been my absolute pleasure to work in close partnership with her to navigate through a recent stressful and exhausting period. Over the 9 months we placed our charity under Felicia’s leadership I’ve felt safe in her hands, respected, and partnered with. It’s not an exaggeration to say that without a visit from ‘The Mary Poppins of the Charity Sector’, AKA Felicia, we would not be looking forward to a bright future.

So why did we choose Felicia? Her track record for turning organisations around who were facing crisis, had lost their way, or just found themselves facing an overwhelming and complex set of challenges, gave us confidence that she might just the person for the job.

We needed an interim leader who could achieve the impossible….

Rally and re-engage a burnt-out staff team.

Identify systemic issues and prioritise how and when to change them.

Support a Trustee Board that was limited in numbers and therefore resources to deliver the extraordinary effort required to fulfil their governance roles.

Plug a funding gap that was growing by the day due to the exceptional costs created by the most recent critical incident.

Ensure that the quality of service the staff and volunteer teams were still somehow managing to deliver could continue, strive to improve further, and be properly and sustainably funded.

Felicia somehow achieved all of this. She calmed the fears of staff who had experienced prolonged uncertainty - by meeting with, listening to, guiding, and rebuilding their confidence. She then implemented an easy to follow performance management pathway to enable Line Managers and their teams to effectively reflect on and evaluate progress and set ambitious targets for professional development.

Through extensive research, done at pace and without much to go on, she pieced together a more accurate funding picture and set out where projects had been underfunded and therefore ended up being subsidised which was using up our unrestricted funding and reserves. Her next step was to rationalise service delivery to ensure KPIs could be met but staff time was properly allocated to restricted funding and where this fell short she went in to battle to win fairer funding terms.

Alongside these transformative actions Felicia also supported us as we navigated our permanent CEO recruitment with an excellent Executive Search Consultant, who we found through Felicia’s extensive connections.

And the final piece of the magic Felicia wove was her eloquent support of crucial funding bids made in collaboration with the Trustees and Fundraising Manager which were successful in ensuring our future on a sustainable basis.

The transformation undertaken by Felicia has been remarkable and we are forever in her debt for taking on the challenge and rising to meet it with unfailing energy, positivity and good humour."

Felicia didn’t just place the interim and walk away she invested in the process ensuring both me as Chair of the charity and the Interim had opportunities to provide feedback and to feel supported. Felicia most importantly listens and has empathy with the situation. She grasped the scope of the task for interim recruitment fast and understood the timetable that I needed to work towards, and a cost effective process that worked smoothly. Felicia made me appreciate that interims work differently to permanent CEOs. She explained clearly and succinctly that interims bring a different skill and mind set to the leadership task. An interim with strong management skills would grasp the sector knowledge fast and empower staff with enthusiasm and knowledge to work collaboratively. That was exactly the experience we had and it was hugely successful and beneficial to the charity. Felicia’s training as a lawyer means she grasps the importance of governance and as an interim CEO and Chair of  charities herself means she has a lived experience and that ability to empathise was invaluable. There is absolutely no need for Trustees to step into operations of a charity when CEOs leave and a recruitment process is taking place nor should they when Felicia and her community of interims are available to assist. It has allowed trustees time to recruit the right calibre of  permanent CEO and at the same time create a good strong platform from which the board and permanent CEO can launch from.

The Interim CEO Nia invested in understanding what as a board we were concerned by, grasped our expectations and absolutely delivered. It has been an absolute pleasure working with such a professional, bright, personable and talented individual. Nia’s ability to understand the financial position of the charity, the people challenges, manage constructive  stakeholder relationships and the  need to engage positively internally and externally have been exemplary. Nia is leaving the charity in terms of governance, partnerships and our people in a far better place. She leaves a positivity and has empowered staff. There is a strong foundation for the permanent CEO and the handover has been made seamless for trustees and staff alike. The new CEO has been very complementary about the process of joining the Charity and all of that is down to Nia’s professional leadership."

"Felicia has made the world of difference to our organisation since stepping in as interim six months ago. Initially holding the fort until we recruited a new CEO, she found herself leading the organisation just as the pandemic unfolded. Not only has she guided us through the uncertainty of covid-19, but she’s helped the senior management team work more effectively together and encouraged a new wave of innovation and energy. Working practices have improved, policies & processes have been reviewed, and we’re back on track with our strategic aims. Felicia is incredibly thorough and has moved the organisation forward 10 steps. She's shown a genuine care and commitment to helping the organisation run more effectively on every level. Thank you Felicia – you’ve made a big difference and I’ll be recommending you to my colleagues in the sector! "