Guest post from Interim CEO Rebekah Capon
The start of the new financial year, Hatch’s ten year anniversary, and a new Interim CEO. There are a lot of milestones and changes to take stock of at the moment so I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself along with the vision and priorities for the organisation going forward.
Hatch’s CEO and founder Dirk is taking a well-earned sabbatical in Japan after ten years of throwing all of his passion, ingenuity, and love for progressive entrepreneurship into making Hatch everything it has become.
He will be back later this year, no doubt bringing new ideas of how we can support underrepresented founders to thrive and make even more impact in the sector. In the meantime I’m excited to throw myself into the role of leading Hatch through the next few months and bringing my own experiences and insights to the position.
As a charity committed to supporting women to lead and grow businesses they are passionate about, it is a privilege to be taking on the leadership of Hatch as a woman and I feel lucky to have the support of such an inspiring community in this journey.
I came to Hatch with twenty years of experience in the non-profit sector, including nearly a decade of leading fundraising teams in the international development sector, and have loved connecting more with the enterprise development sector during my time here first as Director of Fundraising and Partnerships, and then Director of Development.
What has struck me most about Hatch in my time here is the people and culture: the huge passion that everyone has for supporting entrepreneurs to thrive, and the culture of collaboration and innovation.
Last week we held an in-person team day as an opportunity to spend quality time face-to-face (often a challenge in a hybrid organisation) and to co-produce the goals and hopes that we all have for Hatch. This has been a challenging time for the organisation, we have not been immune to the turbulent external climate and ongoing cost of living crisis, so it meant a lot that we were all able to come together and take some time out from the daily running of the charity to really appreciate how far we have come and all that we have achieved in the last year.
From each team sharing their impact, to designing the ideal Hatch culture out of lego, and building bridges out of spaghetti, it was powerful to be able to come together as a team and be reminded of all the positive things we have achieved together, and will continue to achieve in the coming year. The priorities we have committed to are:
- Continued financial resilience: with the economic uncertainty in the UK at the moment we know that as a vital resource for underrepresented social entrepreneurs it is important that we focus on being able to continue delivering impact through our programmes.
- Focus on people: Hatch’s strength is in its people, and it is important that the people that make up the team feel valued and supported, the people on our programmes access the opportunities they need as an individual, and the people supporting us are appreciated and able to engage in a way that suits them.
- Delivering impact through programmes: we know that a Hatch programme can change people’s lives, and are committed to ensuring that all founders who face barriers to entrepreneurship can access the opportunities to help them thrive, and the community that will celebrate and uplift them.
It was great to have such a positive day so early on into my journey as Interim CEO and I look forward to spending more time diving into different areas of the organisation, getting to know more founders personally, and working towards our three priorities. Our mission at Hatch is to build a better world through entrepreneurship, and spending time with this committed, passionate team, it’s hard not to believe that this world is in sight.
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