Sir Stuart Etherington steps down after 25 years
NCVO has announced its new chief executive.
Karl Wilding will take over from Sir Stuart Etherington in the autumn.
Wilding joined NCVO in 1998 working in a number of posts before becoming director of public policy and volunteering in 2016.
Etherington announced his retirement earlier this year after 25 years with the umbrella body.
After the announcement, Wilding said he was committed to the sector and wanted to stand up for charities making sure they are at the forefront of society.
He said: “I’m excited and humbled to have been asked to lead the new NCVO. Charities and volunteering change people’s lives. As the chief executive of a re-purposed NCVO I want to stand up for the charities and millions of people who every day make a difference to the causes that they believe in.”
Peter Kellner, chair of NCVO, said: “When we embarked on the recruitment process we knew NCVO needed to adapt to big changes in the charity sector and civil society more widely. We set out to find the person who could best meet these challenges and provide a new direction for NCVO. Karl’s awareness of these challenges and his strategy for change were compelling.
“Karl is a strong communicator with a sharp strategic focus, and he has an instinctive understanding of both the complexities within the voluntary sector and the values that unify it. His experience as a voluntary sector leader, a trustee and a volunteer give him a holistic view of what charities and volunteering need for the future.”
Wilding faces challenging times at NCVO. Last month the author of a new book about the history of the organisation, Justin Davis Smith, warned that the umbrella body “finds itself largely excluded from the negotiating table” and urged it to consider some sort of return to the federal structure it had in the early days.
He added that council has enjoyed significant success over the last 25 years under Ehterington’s leadership, but its influence is less than it was its peak in the early years of the century and it will need to work hard to rediscover it.
