Our newly appointed Development Director Faye Sunter spoke to us about her new role, and what she's hoping to achieve alongside our Director Kelly.
How long have you worked at Changing Lives, and what roles have you had in your time? Tell us a bit more about your roles.
I was TUPE’d into Changing Lives in 2016 so I’ve been here 9 years but technically my length of service is around 16/17 years! I was TUPE’d in the role as Service Manager for a recovery service we had in Sunderland at the time (Wear Recovery). Since then I have had roles as Mobilisation Manager, Recovery Lead and then more recently Operational Lead before moving into this new role as Development Director. I feel that the combination of working across Operational Services and within Business Development when I was Mobilisation Manager has given me a really good insight into how Changing Lives works as an Organisation and has helped me develop my skills and experience across a wider range of areas.
What does your new role entail?
As Development Director I will be responsible (alongside Kelly who I am job sharing with) for setting out the development strategy moving forward and ensuring everyone is working to the same goals in achieving this. We are looking at growth as an organisation, which will involve both retention of current services as well as identifying and developing new opportunities and we will be considering how our fundraising team and communications plan can support this strategy. The role will involve working as part of the Exec Team to help drive Changing Lives forward and navigate where there are opportunities for us moving forward as well as ensuring we deliver high quality services across the board.
How do you feel you had to develop professionally (and personally) in order to secure your new role?
I feel that working as part of Changing Lives for 9 years has allowed me insight into where we are going as an organisation and where we would like to go moving forward. My role as Mobilisaition Manager allowed me to bridge the gap between central support functions and Operational services, which I found extremely useful. My background was always in Recovery Services and I feel that I had to quickly develop my skills and knowledge to include other areas such as housing benefit and domestic abuse and Women's specific services as well as elements such as asset management and finances in order to give me a more rounded view of the organisation and its' growth strategy moving forward.
What do you hope to achieve?
I am looking forward to working alongside Kelly to develop the strategy and I am hoping to develop a strategy for growth that sees the organisation move forward in new areas as well as demonstrate excellence in areas we already deliver. I feel that the strategy shouldn’t just be owned by Business Development and I therefore hope to share our ambitions and take the organisation and the people we work with on a journey where we are all working towards the same end goal, to support more individuals, across more areas and help people make positive change in their life.
