What search and rescue taught one charity trustee about the boardroom
Summary
In this interview, James draws on 20 years running a paid career alongside an unpaid one in search and rescue and on charity boards. Earlier this year his team found a person alive within ten minutes of deploying, and he watched strategy, money, recruitment, training and kit arrive at once. Boards, he says, “rarely get to stand at the far end of their own decisions”.
In his view, frontline experience does not automatically make a better trustee; it should give calibration, not a licence to re-run the operation from the board table. He has found boards “misled far more often by well-intentioned reporting than by anybody being dishonest”, and governance should fit an organisation’s stage: a framework it cannot run “produces paperwork that looks like assurance”. In his experience, “the most powerful thing anyone can do around a board table is rarely a better answer. It is a better question.”
Three key points
- At Credit Suisse before the takeover, risk moved faster than any annual plan could track, yet most boards, charity and commercial alike, still look at a risk register once a quarter and treat it as current.
- He argues that a board that cannot say what proportion of its income comes from its largest source, and what would happen if that source stopped, is carrying a risk it is not managing.
- In his view, many boards still cannot answer what AI is in use in their organisation, who approved it, and what happens when it gets something wrong.
Read the interview
Charity Today publishes the interview in full, including his view on AI from advising the boards of two AI companies, his seven years on the Masonic Charitable Foundation’s risk and audit committee and the London Search and Rescue work he is proudest of.
The full interview mentions suicide. If this affects you, Samaritans are free to call, day or night, on 116 123.
Insights
Worth reading next
The reading below stays close to this subject, often seen from the side of someone else round the table, such as the chair, an investor or the head of internal audit. It shows the wider subject from their perspective, and the questions each of them is likely to ask.
Getting to know you: James Walker, founder, Lightning Oak
Business Matters asks James about the question behind Lightning Oak and why challenge without support is just criticism.
Search and rescue volunteer’s passion
The Sunday Mirror on James’s search and rescue volunteering, from an early-morning search for a missing six-year-old to why the work keeps him grounded.
Explore your own question further
In a particular organisation, the detail can change how these points apply. James is happy to hear from anyone weighing them up for their own board, committee or charity. This page summarises an interview published elsewhere, and is not advice on any particular situation.