Impetus CEO Eleanor Harrison begins her maternity leave this week. In the interim she will be passing the reins into the safe hands of Tanya Curry. Tanya has a wealth of experience in senior positions in the charity sector, most recently as Interim CEO at the Ramblers. Here, Eleanor and Tanya talk about their transition plans, what the next year holds for Impetus, and their shared mission to transform the lives of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Eleanor:

This maternity leave has come round so quickly but I’ll be – temporarily – leaving here very confident that the Impetus team, led by Tanya, can build on what we have already achieved and help even more young people from disadvantaged backgrounds get into better education and employment.

Tanya has great interim and governance experience. She also has the emotional intelligence and leadership skills to get the best out of people and will be able to guide the team in pushing forward our agenda so we can carry on growing as an organisation.

Our Board, senior management team and staff were all involved at some level in the selection process and unanimously agreed that Tanya would be brilliant for the job.

Tanya:

Thanks Eleanor. I’m really looking forward to joining the talented team at Impetus and building on the work that you have led over the last 22 months.

Having come from a background in healthcare, where I originally trained as a Nurse, I have worked in the NHS but have worked in the Charity Sector for 22 years now, which I love. After leaving my role as a Hospice CEO over 6 years ago, I developed my interim career where I have been fortunate to work with some great organisations. As an Interim CEO, Trustee of a Student Union and Non Exec Director in the NHS I love working with a wide variety of people and feel especially passionate about making a difference to young people at what is a crucial time in their lives.

The Impetus model is really unique – which will be an interesting and exciting challenge for me. I have been struck by the positive, can-do approach and the willingness of everyone, whatever their role, to get the best results for young people by driving through change.

This is why Impetus is so successful at what it does, and I am really looking forward to working with everyone and being part of the team.

Eleanor:

It’s not a total goodbye from me. To our brilliant donors and charities I want to say that I’m not disappearing completely this year. I’ll be staying in touch with Tanya and the team, attending key events and keeping in contact with our charity partners. I’ll be balancing being available and giving Tanya the freedom to make key decisions.

Together we’ll be guided by our outcomes – across educational attainment, university access and jobs – our focus remains to build on our growing impact from 2021, with the aim of helping more than 300,000 young people achieve better education and employment outcomes in 2022.

At the end of the day Tanya and I will be on this journey together over the next year - working with humour, honesty and trust, sharing the aim of closing the gap for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and helping them to thrive at school and work.