The Client
Babbasa is an award-winning social enterprise that empowers young people from ethnically diverse and less advantaged communities to move into work, education or business using approaches that encourage them to feel inspired, supported, and ready to fulfil their ambitions. Formed in 2010 and incorporated as a Community Interest Company in 2013, they now support over 400 young people each year to take their next steps towards work, education or business.
Babbasa Chief Executive Poku Osei contacted Moon Executive Search as they were looking for several new Non-Executive Directors to join their board. They have ambitious plans to extend their reach further to support more young people with a wider network of community and business partners and wanted more Board members to help facilitate this.
The Campaign
This was a national campaign, led by our Founding Director Vanessa Moon. We were particularly interested to talk to candidates with national networks and knowledge of product, technology, finance and legal within scale-up businesses, and / or experience working within the charity sector.
The Solution
Six new Non-Executive Directors were appointed from a variety of backgrounds:
· Alex Emenike, Assistant Director of Corporate Banking at NatWest
· Dr Aby Sankaran, Impact and Evaluation Manager at the University of Bristol, previously Head of Innovation and Partnerships at Science Creates
· Gurminder Kaur, Head of General Counsel Business Partnering at Irwin Mitchell
· Sanyalax Morrison, Strategic Procurement Director at National Highways
· Jonathan O’Toole, Product Adviser and Founding team member at Elvie
· Claire Giraldo, Senior HR Leader, BSC, MAHRM
Vanessa Moon comments: “we were overwhelmed with the response and goodwill towards Babbasa and the work they do in the community. We have worked with Poku and Babbasa for many years and were delighted that he wanted to work with us on the campaign. It was such a wonderful and positive outcome for the Social Enterprise, and we are looking forward to hearing about the next steps as they bring in this new board.”
Poku Osei, Babbasa Chief Executive adds: “Vanessa and her team did a wonderful job for us in presenting a great short list of Non-Exec candidates. We are hugely excited about our future and mission to make a tangible difference in the social mobility of people from minoritized and low-income communities in the city. What is important is that a key part of our activity in the coming years will be the growth of Babbasa’s Recruitment and Inclusion Services (BRIS) to provide both the pathway for young people to median-salary employment, but also a ‘go-to’ for employers looking to become more inclusive and recruit talented young people of colour. These new Non-Execs will help us to further enhance the quality of our services, extend our reach to more education providers and businesses, and deepen our impact amongst young people.’