From the Classroom to the Boardroom

Christine Lester is a senior strategist, educator and consultant with more than 35 years’ experience designing, leading and securing funded programmes across the UK, Europe and internationally. As Chief Executive of West Midlands Tomorrow and Principal of the Minster Development Centre, she works with public bodies, regulated sectors, social enterprises and private organisations to build capability, strengthen communities and deliver sustainable impact. Her areas of expertise include strategic workforce development, leadership programmes, bid creation and evaluation, organisational learning, cross-sector collaboration and community empowerment. She specialises in values-led strategy – ensuring that openness, integrity and trust underpin every project, partnership and programme she supports. Christine has led, managed or contributed to major national and international initiatives including: • multi-year EU and Erasmus+ programmes across 20+ countries • cross-sector leadership programmes for the Ministry of Defence and national police forces • Investors in People evaluations for large dioceses, heritage organisations and councils • community development and empowerment initiatives across health, education and social inclusion • feasibility studies for multi-million-pound cultural, educational and social enterprise centres • international bids and learning frameworks for the British Council and World Bank A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Christine has been an accredited Investors in People Adviser & Assessor since the inception of the standard. Her work is informed by decades of hands-on experience with vocational qualifications, competency development, project quality assurance and collaborative learning methodologies. She is currently involved in projects spanning a 5–10 year literacy strategy, a multi-year SDG-aligned development programme, and a podcast/book series, A Lifetime of Learning, which explores the purpose, impact and legacy of knowledge in service to society. Christine speaks regularly at conferences on leadership, community development, learning strategy and empowerment, and continues to mentor senior leaders navigating complex organisational and societal challenges.

 

The Interview Transcript

Hugh Ballou: This is Hugh Ballou, and this is The Nonprofit Exchange. Welcome. We have another special episode today. The Nonprofit Exchange is where we explore leadership principles and practical strategies that help nonprofit leaders build healthy organizations and create lasting impact. And I’m your host, I’m here every week, Hugh Ballou, and I’ve interviewed fascinating people, and today’s no exception. Today’s conversation is titled, From the Classroom to the Boardroom. Nonprofits face no shortage of challenges, but they also operate in a world of untapped talent, potential partners, funding possibilities, and opportunities to learn. The essential leadership task is knowing how to recognize these opportunities, evaluate them wisely, and turn them into sustainable results. My guest today is Christine Lester. She has letters FRSA behind her name. We’ll ask about those in a minute. She’s a lifelong learning and organizational development leader whose work has connected education, vocational competence, leadership, European cooperation, and community impact. Christine, welcome to The Nonprofit Exchange. Let me tell people a little bit about you before we go forward. You’re the founder and director of Minster Development Centre Ltd and Chief Executive of West Midlands Tomorrow, your career spans vocational education, lifelong learning, leadership, and organizational development, program design, funding, inclusion, and international cooperation. You support chief executives, boards, and senior leaders across public, regulated, and not-for-profit sectors. So you’re the founder of this Minster Development Centre. We’re going to talk a little bit about that. Your work, including European and international learning partnerships, accessible tourism training, curriculum development, funded projects, and the practical challenge of converting project outputs into enduring legacy. You’re a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. That’s fascinating. And you describe yourself as a knowledge altruist, committed to helping people and organizations find their pathway, use what they know, and continue learning throughout life. So Christine, you’ve had quite a journey going from classroom learning to leadership. Tell us why you chose that title for this interview today.

Christine Lester: Because I think not so many people actually in our leadership sector, if you like, have come from a classroom background. They tend to be from organizations and they become consultants. I came up from teaching young people. I didn’t actually ever think that I would be where I am. But it’s just been my pathway. I don’t know how. I don’t know how I got to European work, but I did. So yeah, it’s been a huge journey. But the classroom taught me such a lot. Teaching young people, they are the hardest, I think, to teach because they question everything. Question everything you say and everything you do. Sometimes they appear not to want to learn, but they do. And I was teaching young accountants who would, of course, go on to work in organizations and take a great deal of responsibility in those organizations. So it’s a question of not just teaching them how to be accountants. That’s the examination. It’s about how do they work in organizations and how do they rise. Most of them do rise. The ones I taught are now chief execs of some of the largest companies. So, yes.

Hugh Ballou: So, talk a little bit about the Minster Development Centre and the West Midlands Tomorrow. Talk about those organizations and what is your role with those?

Christine Lester: I talk about West Midlands Tomorrow first because that’s a non-profit. When I say I was an altruist, that’s when I think it’s cost me an awful lot of money to keep West Midlands Tomorrow going because it is not a non-profit, because we’re taught to find funding. So West Midlands Tomorrow came about really from me meeting Charles Handy. You know, Charles Handy, the great business author. He’s written many, many books on organizations and I was lucky enough to meet him. And I also met people like Anita Roddick, who started Body Shop, which is now an international organization. So within that organization, we were talking about inclusivity in organizations. And a lot of that inspired me to go on and look at what makes me an inclusive leadership leader. So West Midlands Tomorrow is very visionary. I think Minster development is very straightforward. We teach. Minster is named after our cathedral city. Cathedral sits just a few miles away from me. And I started literally under the eaves of the cathedral. And many years back, the cathedral was actually a client of mine.

Hugh Ballou: Sweet. So, you worked in education, I understand. And then what did that teach you about leadership that many executives and board members never learn through that formal leadership training?

Christine Lester: I think it’s the softer skills, the softer skills of being a leader. My husband worked for a great leader who also has gone on to be the founder of different organizations. And he used to walk the talk every morning. And that’s something that maybe leaders don’t think to do, is to get out and walk around their organization. Talk to the employees they go past, say good morning, how are things doing? That’s the softer side of leadership. We run many events in St. George’s Chapel in Windsor on leadership for organisations all over the country. And they talked about in one session, are leaders, are they nurtured or are they born to be leaders? And I think that’s, again, a great topic that interests me. What kind of leaders are they? Some are born leaders, and some have to learn how to be a leader. And again, I think that’s a topic that fascinates me, and I try to include that in whenever I’m talking to people. So what kind of leaders do they want to be?

Hugh Ballou: So you describe yourself as a knowledge altruist. So explain what that term means and why is that important in your work?

Christine Lester: That only came to me recently when I was talking to someone and I said that I don’t make as much money as I should do. I should be charging thousands of pounds for the knowledge that I pass on. If I look at it this way, I can’t take it with me. When I go, it goes, although I am looking at the moment of doing my legacy to see how I can leave that. But really, you cannot take money with you, can you? So why don’t you just spread that knowledge? Why don’t you give it out? Why don’t you charge a certain amount for what you’re teaching people? But then you give a lot. So that is what I was told an altruist is, a person who gives out a lot more than they normally would. And that fascinated me because I thought that’s really what I’ve been doing all my life. It’s giving away too much, too much to be a person with a lot of money. What am I going to do with that? Who would I pass that money on to? So I might as well give my knowledge as much as I can, mightn’t I?

Hugh Ballou: That’s great. That’s great. So let’s talk about a little, you could talk about the University of Life. So as I understand it, the Minster Development Centre has emphasized accreditation of prior learning. So why is it important to recognize the competence that leaders have gained through work, service, volunteering, and their lived experience?

Christine Lester: Again, it’s something in the UK that is accredited. So you can, for instance, if you’re going to teach someone something, you look first of all, what do they already know that you don’t need to teach them? So instead of teaching them a huge curriculum, you take into account what they already know by where they’ve been or where they work. And an example of that I give is that When I was probably 17 or 18, I was organizing conferences for my executive director I worked for. We had people coming from all over the world to the company, and that was my job. They came for five days, and I had to do their hotels, their bookings, all that stuff, air tickets, everything for them. I don’t have a qualification that says I’m an events organizer. I couldn’t go to an organization and say, well, here’s my background, and here’s, you know, take it for granted because I don’t have a qualification. I don’t have any means of proving what I can do, but I expect you to take me on and employ me. It doesn’t work like that, does it? People want to know what experience you’ve got. Well, if you haven’t got a record of it, and you haven’t got somebody who has accredited that record, you haven’t got anything. And that’s what I think is missing in today’s world. Even young people could be doing jobs at the moment that gives them learning that they can then put on their CV and say that they’ve done. But we don’t do it. We don’t do it enough.

Hugh Ballou: So also, we have gifted people that come our way, and it’s not really immediately evident in their resume or their CV or their job title we’re talking about. So how do leaders learn to uncover that hidden talent? And it’s sort of in the area of how do we separate credentials and capability? There’s two different things. So how do we explore and find those hidden capabilities and talent with people that we might not understand that they have those capabilities?

Christine Lester: Well, unfortunately, I don’t think it happens. I think if you’re going to employ somebody, they present their CV to you and you may give them an interview. You may then find out that they have all sorts of skills that you can use in your organisation. But mostly you don’t. You take them on. It’s a wish and a prayer. You hope they’re going to fit in. You hope they’re going to be able to perform. You have no knowledge that to work on. But if you had an accreditation from a well-known accredited body that says this person has got all this learning, you as an employer would know much more about what you’re taking on. You would have some recognition, wouldn’t you? So again, it’s something we can do. We were doing it 40 years ago in the UK. Something we still do, we still do, but we don’t do enough of it. And it isn’t recognised by government, I don’t think. So if I got in front of the Prime Minister today, that’s what I’d say to him. Recognise the achievements of young people, give them a chance. Because we’ve got a million people, young people, unemployed in this country, which we have. We’ve got a million young people with no jobs. Because they’ve got nothing to present to say what they could do. Luckily, my own son went through Scouts and he became a leader in Scouts. So he automatically could get leadership skills. He came to me just before he finished university, started his first job on the Monday morning. He said, mom, they want my CV off me. What on earth can I put on it? He said, all I can put on is my degree. He said, I’ve done nothing else. I said, ‘You haven’t; you’ve just left out Scouts and all the work with leadership skills.’ Put that on your CV. Why not? You know, you people want as much help as we can give them.

Hugh Ballou: So you have a message that Non-profits or not for profits, we use both terms, face many challenges and must know how to navigate and find opportunities that are available. So what are some of the greatest challenges facing our non-profit leaders today?

Christine Lester: Oh, definitely funding, number one. I’ve come across some young people who have come to me and said, we want to get started. We’re putting our own money into this dream of ours. But they can’t get through the first 12 months because they run out of funding. So we do have some funding agencies in the UK, but we need an awful lot more. The number of not-for-profits in this country is far larger than the number of corporates. The corporates can get investment money not all that easily. I’m not saying it’s easy to do that. But you take a young person starting out with a new product or a new way of doing AI or something like that, where do they go for the funding for that? We’re just not helping. And particularly non-profit, we have to do an awful lot more to prove that we need the funding.

Hugh Ballou: In the last part of this interview, you’ve given us some good things to think about. In this topic area, let’s talk about inclusion, succession, and the future of learning. Three different topics, but they’re related. So you have worked on inclusion and accessibility, accessible learning. What does meaningful inclusion require beyond just inviting people into a program?

Christine Lester: I think, again, inclusivity is a big topic for us in the business world at the moment. Inclusivity, diversity, accessibility. We’ve got too many people who could be working but can’t. Can’t get access to the employment market, again, because of various difficulties. Gosh, I so wish Andy Burnham had sent them to me. He sent one of his ministers to the Netherlands to find out something that I did as a project 20 years ago. He didn’t need to send somebody to the Netherlands, like they told him, because we’d already done it. So that made me think a little bit. But there we are. So inclusivity, diversity, it comes more or less as an order prescribed to what we just must do to achieve inclusivity. But I would like to think that it was done voluntarily. You wanted to run an organization that was inclusive, that you wanted to be able to employ people, whatever their color or their background. Not to have it forced on you. To me, that doesn’t make best use of people that are out there. Gosh, I’m passionate about so many things, aren’t I? But I suppose it comes to me after a long time of working and wishing that I could see things differently. I’d love to be able to say that things are better than they were when I started out. I think they’re improved in some ways. But in other ways, we’ve gone backwards. So I would like to see if we’ve had this awful incident in the UK. I won’t give too many details. But a young professor was accused of plagiarism. And it’s wrecked, not just wrecked his career, it’s wrecked his life because he died. We don’t want circumstances like that, do we? We want people, it doesn’t have to be in the press, it doesn’t have to be in the media around it. It could have been dealt with, with some kind of leadership. Leadership should have managed that.

Hugh Ballou: So as we wind up here, I want to at least get two more questions in if I can here. So if you could redesign the relationship between education, employers, nonprofits, and communities, what would you rearrange and what would you change first?

Christine Lester: We are talking about it, but I’ve been talking about it for years. I would bring back colleges. I don’t think necessarily every person or a university or degree or whatever is necessary in every person. I think there is a place for alternative skills. I think we have lost, I don’t know whether you have in the States, but we have lost that part of education where you had a choice, whether you went to college or whether you went to university. If you went to university to learn, then it was like in my son’s case, seven years and a lot of debt. Was there an alternative way? I think in his case, no, there wasn’t. But I think that should be a consideration. That’s one thing I would like to change. I would like us to go back to having alternative forms of education, not just one pathway that everybody has to follow that one way.

Hugh Ballou: So here’s a closing question for you. What gives you hope about the future for non-profit leaders and non-profit leadership in general?

Christine Lester: Sorry, I didn’t get the first part of that.

Hugh Ballou: What gives you hope about the future for future leaders in our sector, the not-for-profit sector?

Christine Lester: Oh, I think, strangely enough, I think my passion for the subjects that I’ve talked about today is the passion that actually brings people into a non-profit. And it gives them the vision and the enthusiasm to keep going despite the obstacles. I think non-profits have a lot more going for them than some of the corporate leaders I met that way. The corporate leaders, sometimes they’re behind the thinking, whereas the non-profits are having to face what is the real world and face the real obstacles. So they’ve got much more tenacity, much more strength. No, I just love nonprofits.

Hugh Ballou: Well, I can feel the passion when you talk about it. So, Christine Lester, thank you for helping us connect lifelong learning and leadership and for reminding us that the knowledge already present in our people and community can become a powerful strategic asset when leaders know how to recognize, develop, and apply it. We just need to stay open to opportunities. And thank you for joining us today on the Nonprofit Exchange. And I want to tell people, remember, leadership is not about doing everything yourself. It’s about creating the systems, relationships, and conditions in which people can succeed together. So until next time, Keep learning with purpose and building the capacity to turn opportunity into lasting impact. So, Christine, you’ve given us a lot to think about today. So, thank you again for being the guest today on the Nonprofit Exchange.

Christine Lester: Thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure.