Governor

As a Governor, you will play a vital non-executive role in shaping the college's educational character, strategic direction and long-term sustainability. Working collectively with fellow governors, you will provide strategic oversight, constructive challenge and leadership, ensuring the college delivers high-quality education and training that genuinely transform lives, strengthen communities and support the local economy. Governors bring independence, insight and a wide range of professional, specialist and lived experience to the Board. You will help set and promote the college's mission and values, oversee performance and quality, safeguard public funds and ensure robust governance across all areas of activity. While you will not be involved in the day-to-day running of the college, your role as a critical friend is essential to holding the executive team to account and supporting confident, forward-looking decision-making. Becoming a Governor is a rewarding opportunity to make a meaningful difference to education and social mobility across the region, while developing your board-level experience in a supportive and purposeful governance environment.

We are particularly keen to hear from individuals with senior-level expertise in finance and/or estates who are motivated to use their skills to make a meaningful difference to education and the communities we serve. You may be an experienced finance professional, such as a CFO, finance director, accountant or auditor, or have strong commercial and financial oversight experience gained in the public, private or third sector. Alternatively, you may bring estates-related expertise - for example, in property, capital projects, facilities management, asset management, construction, sustainability or health and safety. Experience in managing complex estates, major capital investment, or ensuring value for money across significant assets would be especially valuable to the Board. You do not need to have previous experience as a college governor. What matters most is your ability to think strategically, ask the right questions, work collaboratively and act as a trusted critical friend to the executive team. We value professional expertise alongside lived experience and welcome applicants from all backgrounds who share a passion for education and public service. As a Governor, you will be expected to uphold the highest standards of governance, act with independence and discretion and demonstrate a strong commitment to the Nolan Principles of Public Life. You will also share the college's core values of respect, integrity, collaboration, high expectations and responsibility and be willing to act as an ambassador for the college both locally and regionally.

West Nottinghamshire College is a major further education institution serving Mansfield, Ashfield and surrounding communities, with a clear public mission to deliver high-quality education, skills and training that support individual opportunity, economic growth and social mobility. The college exists to provide skills that enable students, employers and communities to thrive and to act as a force for raising aspirations. Its work is underpinned by its strong values of respect, integrity, collaboration, high expectations and responsibility, which inform both operational delivery and governance practice. The college educates over 10,000 learners, including 16-18 students, apprentices and adult learners and works in close partnership with employers, local authorities, the East Midlands Combined County Authority and Nottingham Trent University. Its provision is strategically aligned to regional priorities, including engineering and advanced manufacturing, construction, health and social care, digital skills and low-carbon technologies. The college has an annual turnover of c.£48 million, reflecting significant operational scale, sustained growth in learner numbers and increasing apprenticeship and adult skills activity. It holds a 'Good' Ofsted rating, with 'Outstanding' features and maintains a 'Good' financial health rating from the Department for Education, enabling continued investment in its estate, workforce and long-term sustainability. As an exempt charity and public body, West Nottinghamshire College places strong emphasis on effective governance, financial stewardship, risk management, safeguarding and accountability. The Corporation Board provides strategic oversight and assurance, ensuring the college continues to deliver public benefit whilst remaining resilient in a complex and evolving further education landscape., Placing purpose and quality before profit, Peridot Partners is a values-led third sector executive recruitment agency transforming leadership and inspiring change with organisations that have a social purpose. We're a close-knit team of exceptional people and we're proud of developing an ultra-flexible, empowering and fun culture. We focus on long-term, deep-rooted relationships that bring added value. We challenge the status quo about what makes good leadership, and this is reflected in our exceptional clients, candidates and close community of change-makers. Since 2009, we have worked with organisations that want to grow and who appreciate and value good leadership, across the public, third and private sectors. The strength of our organisation comes from our cross-functional networks, our exceptional research team and our experience attracting people from all sectors to organisations with a social focus. We recruit to boards, executive positions and specialist functional roles such as fundraising, finance, and marketing and communications across a range of sectors, from social justice and health charities, foundations, grant-making organisations and think tanks to awarding bodies, training providers, schools, multi-academy trusts, colleges and universities, and student unions., "The Executive Team recruited by Peridot are fantastic! The team are one of the best I have seen and have successfully taken on the challenge of an organisation facing insolvency and led a turnaround in our fortunes, and into a successful merger that will safeguard further education in the city of Brighton." - Chair of the Corporation at Greater Brighton Metropolitan College We're driven by our values:

• Be brave - We champion and challenge in our own individual ways to improve outcomes for ourselves and our clients.
• Bring rigour - We're thorough, thoughtful and speak up for what's right.
• See the bigger picture - We build real partnerships and work together for long term success.
• Sense and respond - We respond in creative and meaningful ways to what's needed.
Our intentions are clear: to achieve the best outcomes for our clients, our candidates, our people and our business. We are known for third sector executive recruitment underpinned by high standards, quality service and creating social impact. We develop long-term, deep-rooted relationships that bring real value to our partners across socially focused sectors. Diversity at our heart We do not believe in throwaway statements about diversity. Instead, diversity is at the heart of everything we do and is crucial to our success, reputation, and the organisations and people we work with. We understand that it is not good enough to simply not discriminate and we must do more to create positive change. With this in mind, we are proud that we have been actively working to become an Anti-Racist and more inclusive organisation. We recognise that unconscious bias exists and must be minimised. We have put processes in place to manage them. We have a position of influence as a recruitment company to make our positive contribution to change the systems that perpetuate discrimination, and with that comes a responsibility to do better. We work tirelessly to ensure we lead inclusive campaigns and projects that can encourage all members of society to apply and know that they will be treated with decency and respect. We support equal opportunities in employment and oppose all forms of unlawful or unfair discrimination based on gender, age, ethnic or national origin, religion, sexual orientation or disability. We believe that a diverse not for profit sector will provide better leadership to accelerate positive change in society. We are proud to have an exceptional track record of leading inclusive recruitment campaigns that enhance diversity of leadership teams and boards. As a recruitment partner, you can expect us to:
• Constructively challenge you if you have exclusive and restrictive criteria in your role profiles.
• Ensure the advertising materials for your role use inclusive language and imagery.
• Promote your role within sector-specific networking forums wherever possible (e.g. women, global ethnic majority, disabled and LGBTQIA+ networks).
• Put diversity at the heart of the projects we are undertaking when talking to your staff and board to ensure we are reflecting the people and communities you work with and for.
• Challenge inappropriate behaviour, practice and comments where required.
• Make reasonable adjustments as needed.
Our commitment to building diverse organisations starts with us, and we are proud that women, LGBTQ+, disabled and people from ethnic minorities consider Peridot a great place to work.