Time to move on

Last summer Preventable Surprises hired a new CEO, David Murray, allowing the founder of the organisation, Raj, to step into a role as chair, replacing my Kentish Town hostess, Carolyn, who recently moved on to other volunteer assignments. David announced this week that he is leaving in July, after a year on board. Coincidentally the two-year mark for me.

So it will be just Raj and me. However Raj and I don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, just as Raj and David didn’t agree on basic issues like strategy or priorities. I’ve thought of leaving before, but David’s hiring gave me hope that he and I could cobble together an alternative to the Raj-inspired chaos. During David’s reign, I’ve mostly been able to focus on whatever I thought was useful or promising, largely capitalising on last year’s proxy voting report ahead of this year’s AGMs. I’ve also worked with Carolyn on a few projects, most recently the dialogue on Asian utilities. Without David and Carolyn, Raj will have me going from pillar to post, chasing three different ideas per day and achieving nothing.

So I have to start a job search. Not excited by the prospect, but I’ve also known for a long time that Preventable Surprises isn’t a good fit for me. Partly because of Raj. Partly because I don’t enjoy working alone at home. And partly because Preventable Surprises is so far on the margin of what is going on--due to Raj’s knack for alienating potential partners--that it is almost irrelevant.

April 19