CEO Today United Kingdom Awards

25 www.ceotodaymagazine.com CEO Today United Kingdom Awards 2018 CHARITY Christine Alexander CEO of Carers Trust East Midlands I began my career in care after deciding that I did not like the world of Hotel Management for which I had trained. After several different jobs, I applied for a job with a new charity called ‘Trent Crossroads – Caring for Carers’ as a Carer Support Worker. This was in early 1995, and I soon discovered a love for people with disabilities, especially the elderly – as well as a deep admiration and respect for the families and friends who sacrificed so much to care for them. My passion and motivation gave me the energy to fulfil my role with drive and enthusiasm, and the more time I gave to the role, the more competent and knowledgeable I became. I was surrounded by colleagues who valued my enthusiasm and they enabled me to grow with the organisation and move into other roles and progress my career. In 2000, I took over as the CEO with fear and trepidation… and a constant certainty that I would fail. I had not ‘trained’ to be a CEO and felt in no way ‘qualified’ for the role. It has taken me nearly 25 years to realise that there is no CEO training course that truly equips you to be a CEO, especially the CEO of a charity. Management courses can help, as can a variety of employment experiences. However, I have always found that it is my passion and commitment to improve the lives of the most vulnerable in our society and surrounding myself with similarly committed and experienced staff, and a Board of Directors, that are key factors in enabling me to be where I am today. From when I took over as CEO and to our current financial year, our income has grown from £500k per annum to £10 million. We have undertaken 16 mergers since 2006, which has contributed to this growth but is not the sole reason. In fact, much of the growth in income has come from the development of new products and services providing innovative solutions to cash-strapped public sector commissioners who are looking for providers who can help them to meet the exponentially growing need of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens. Our fastest growing service is a hospital prevention and discharge service that clears hospital beds as well as preventing admission in the first place. These services are hugely successful due to the tremendous pressure on our health service to deal with an ageing population and an increase in those living with long- term conditions. These particular services have grown by 300% in just the last 3 years. In addition, we are now able to offer the families of those caring for someone a range of services to support them: • We support family carers by providing home-based respite care to give them a break from their caring responsibilities. • We support people at the end of their lives with complex needs so they can stay at home with their families in a familiar environment. • We support people who have a short-term need, to rehabilitate or get back on their feet by having support for a short period of time. • We provide home-based support for children with disabilities and their parents. • We provide information, advice and guidance over the telephone or face to face. • We provide group care for those wanting to meet other people and share activities and outings together. • We provide on-going support for families who face a long-term change to their lives, due to a diagnosis or an accident that results in a long-term disability. We stay with these families all the way through their journey as their needs change over many years. • We support young people