This week’s guest blog comes from Hannah Fazal of the charity RAFT, a registered charity pionneering medical research into improved treatment for burns, wounds and other skin traumas including skin cancer.
She wanted to tell us about an inspiring individual, RAFT’s CEO Leonor Stjepic.
“A person intensely driven to achieve – this is a fundamental requirement for a CEO, and is exactly how we would describe RAFT’s CEO, Leonor.
She entered the voluntary sector after spending months volunteering and working in Croatia with children who were victims of war and helping to set up the Amnesty Working Group for Children at the age of nineteen. Leonor has been professionally working in this sector for 16 years and has been the CEO of RAFT since 2007.
Rising to the challenge
Leonor’s drive and ambition was inspired by her family who came to England as political refugees and worked extremely hard and were determined not to be defeated by challenges.
As the public face of RAFT, her role includes raising awareness, and managing the resources effectively- including people, costs and assets, and setting the overall vision and strategy of RAFT.
No day is the same- whether it is running in and out of meetings or meeting potential patrons or other important visitors. No day is easy either – we are often threatened with funding cuts and economical factors that dramatically affect some of the work we do.
Attending award ceremonies and meeting interesting people is a small, yet rewarding part of the job -, but it’s not all glitz and glamour. The first to start work at an early 6am, she scrolls through her emails on her Blackberry whilst walking her dogs on Hampstead Heath, thinking about important decisions that will need to be made later in the day.
It is impossible for any CEO to wake up finding themselves free of any challenges- the main one being the organisation never having enough money. For Leonor this is overcome by focusing on what you are trying to achieve as an organisation, and pushing your own feelings aside.
But however hard the day has been, knowing that in some small way you are making a difference to someone’s life is the most rewarding aspect of the job.
Her hard work has had a huge impact on RAFT and will leave behind the legacy of a successful charity which has reached its aims and objectives.”
Support RAFT
If you would like to support RAFT by shopping online with easyfundraising, click here.
Follow Leonor on Twitter – http://twitter.com/@RAFT_CEO
We’d like to hear about your day too – email becky@easyfundraising.org.uk or post a comment below if you’d like to be the subject of our next ‘Day in the life….’