Board Trustee

About the UN Global Compact Network UK

We are a multi-stakeholder initiative connecting UK companies to the United Nations Global Compact, the world’s largest responsible business initiative. The Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact, rooted in UN treaties, provide a robust foundation for corporate sustainability and business action on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Our mission is to promote sustainability leadership to create a world we want to live and do business in, by inspiring ambition, enabling action, and collaborating to shape the business environment.

Our work is guided by the core values of the UN – Integrity, Respect for Diversity, and Professionalism – and nine additional values and behaviours of the UN Global Compact. Find out more here.

To learn more about us and our work, you can read our 2026 Annual Report here.

Role overview

With an increasing participant base of over 900 companies, a growing team of 25 people, and charity status achieved in 2023, the UN Global Compact Network UK (UK Network) is facing many opportunities in the coming years as we mature our organisation and pursue our critical mission in a more complex context. A skilled, wise, and diverse Board of Trustees will be crucial to ensure we deliver our strategy and fulfil our potential. This is why the UN Global Compact Network UK Board is seeking to appoint up to three new Trustees, who will join the Board in time for our December 2026 Board meeting.

Trustees are appointed by the charity's Board and then confirmed by our members at our Annual General Meeting. Trustees oversee the running of the organisation and, as Trustees of a UK-registered charity, will assume the formal legal fiduciary duties associated with that role. They also sit on Board Committees and/or the UK Network Advisory Group to provide invaluable guidance to the UK Network Secretariat on strategy, programmatic activity, and growth ambitions.

Trustees will usually convene quarterly. Each quarter will normally include a meeting of the Board and each of the Board Committees, normally scheduled in the same month. Advisory Group meetings are more ad hoc. Board and Committee meetings typically last a maximum of 2 hours each and take place online. However, to foster relationships within these groups, some meetings might be hosted in person in London.

This is a great opportunity to engage with the UK Network by helping to shape its strategic direction.

You can learn more about the role of Trustees in the Terms of Reference here.

What we are looking for

We are seeking to complement the skills of our current Board members. We will give preference to candidates with experience in one or more of the following areas:

• Artificial Intelligence, including its ethics, risks, and application across different use cases.
• Human Resources, including change management.
• Public Relations/Advocacy, particularly in the sustainability space.
• Finance
• Charity Governance.

Although we welcome applications from individuals of all backgrounds, we are keen to ensure our Board has the range of skills and perspectives it needs, as well as representing the diversity of our membership, and would particularly encourage submissions from:

• Individuals with expertise in core business functions such as finance, HR, legal, technology, or operations. An interest in corporate sustainability is essential, but not expertise.
• Non-business representatives such as business associations and civil society organisations.
• Individuals from underrepresented ethnic groups.

Requirements

• Trustees serve in their personal capacity but must be employed by an organisation that is a member of the Global Compact Network UK company limited by guarantee. You can check if your organisation is already a member here or find out how to join here.

Application process

To ensure that we remove bias from this process and add the right individuals to our Board, we have decided to use Applied, a blind recruitment platform. The application steps are as follows:

1. You'll be asked to complete an equal opportunities questionnaire, and we'll collect some essential admin information.
2. You will answer a few questions designed to test your suitability for this role. Please bring in your personal experience as much as possible. Your answers will be scored anonymously by a diverse panel of reviewers consisting of Trustees and members of the Secretariat team. Your scores on these questions will be the primary consideration in determining whether you will proceed to the final stage. To avoid bias, we won’t look at CVs until later in the process.
3. The last stage of the process will be a focused, 30-minute interview with our Executive Director, the Network Chair, and another Trustee, covering 3-4 key questions.

Closing date: 9:00am, 21st Sep 2026 BST