Publications
During her time with NCVO Tesse Akpeki has authored and co-authored over 20 good practice governance publications and briefings. She has produced on-line resources and her resources have become key reference material for the sector.
Tesse has written numerous articles and writes regularly for ThirdSector and governance magazines. Aspects of her work have appeared in Guardian Society.
Lonely at the top – maintaining a polished performance.
‘Lonely at the top – maintaining a polished performance’ focused on the plight
of Chief Executives and Chairs who face a diverse range of challenges as they
lead voluntary and community organisations.
Voluntary and community sector board members and staff may think that the Chair should know everything and do everything working around the clock 24 hours a day, seven days a week! Conversely Chief Executives are expected to have answers at their fingertips and great ideas for every initiative.
The leadership challenges for the 21st century are diverse and they are going to increase as the sector looks for competent leaders to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of organisations, meeting a varied range of needs and expectations. As the demands increase and supply diminishes, managing at the leading edge needs tools, approaches, strategies and beliefs to enhance quality leadership. They need to position their organisations so that they can continue to be at the top of their game, supporting sometime unpopular causes and providing the right climate in and outside their organisations for their mission to be met.
Lost in Translation: A complete guide to Chair/Chief Executive Partnerships.
‘Lost in Translation: A complete guide to Chair/Chief Executive Partnerships’
follows in the footsteps of a polished performance. This resource offers a comprehensive
framework to establish and maintain a healthy relationship between the two top
organisational leaders. Lost in translation provides insight into the reasons
behind the division of responsibilities and illustrates the importance of respecting
the respective roles. Exercises, tips and charts reinforce this role awareness.
Enhancing good governance
Good governance is on the radar of the public, private, voluntary and community
sectors. Governance issues feature highly and strongly for a variety of reasons.
These range from:
High profile corporate scandals
A dip in trust and confidence twinned with greater public scrutiny
The need for leadership and direction crafting within voluntary and community
organisations
A call for increase accountability, responsibility and transparency
An increased regulatory and compliance regime
Higher expectations from an increasingly savvy public.
A call for more diversity within the sector.
The Alert Board
In the private sector, the collapse of the great conglomerates such as Enron,
World Communication and Adelphi Communications to name a few raised the profile
of governance in relation to transparency, financial probity, integrity and honesty.
In one corporate journal the Board of Enron was described, as ‘having fallen asleep’.
Depressing as this sounds, this is not an unusual condition for boards to find
themselves in.
The following publications authored/coauthored by Tesse Akpeki are available from NCVO:
- The Good Governance Action Plan Workbook
- Lost in Translation: A complete Guide to Chair/Chief Executive Partnerships
- A Chair’s First 100 Days: A practical guide to the basics of board leadership
- A polished performance findings from NCVO’s leadership Programme for Chief Executives and Chairs
- Setting Chief Executive Officer Remuneration
- The Treasurer’s Handbook: A practical guide to strengthening financial accountability in voluntary and community organisations
- Better Communications = Better Governance
- Best Behaviour: Using trustee codes of conduct to improve governance practice
- Living Policy (co-author)
- The Board Answer Book
- Enhancing Trusteeship through mentoring (co-author)
- Involving young people
- Developing Trustee Boards: manual for trainers
- The Effective Retreat Planner: guide for trustees and planners (co-author)
- Getting value from consultants: a practical guide for trustees (co-author)
- Recruiting and Supporting Black and Minority Ethnic Trustees