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Most new association CEOs don't fail because they lack ability. They fail because nobody told them what the job actually is.
In my 30 years leading associations and advising the people who run them, I have watched capable executives walk into an association CEO role and struggle within months. They were not underqualified. They were under-briefed. The recruitment process told them one story. The organisation turned out to be a different one.
If you have just been appointed, are applying, or are being encouraged to put your hand up, these are the four things I would want you to know before your first board meeting — plus one thing you should do before you sign anything at all.
Every candidate expects to be investigated. Very few investigate back.
Understand what you are agreeing to become. In most associations the CEO is an officer of the organisation, whether it is a company limited by guarantee under the Corporations Act or an incorporated association under state legislation. That carries duties of care and diligence in your own name. You are not simply an employee who can point upwards when things go wrong. If the organisation is trading while insolvent, you want to have known about it well before your first board meeting, not during your third.
Ask the recruiter for the last audited financial statements. A recruiter working for a well-governed Board will get them for you, and a Board that refuses has told you something valuable at no cost. If the association is a registered charity, you do not need to ask at all — search the organisation's name on the ACNC Charity Register and read its Annual Information Statement. Medium and large charities must lodge financial reports there, and they are public. Companies limited by guarantee lodge with ASIC. Incorporated associations lodge with the state regulator.
Read for three things: the operating result over three years rather than one, the cash position against liabilities falling due in the next 12 months, and whether the auditor has said anything about going concerns
Then look at the Board itself. How long has each director been there? Does the constitution set term limits, and are they observed or quietly ignored? Is there a succession plan, or is the Chair the only person who knows how the organisation works? Both extremes should give you pause. A Board where several directors have sat for a decade will have habits you will struggle to shift. A Board where two-thirds roll off in your first 18 months means the mandate you were hired to deliver may leave with the people who wrote it.
None of this is distrust. It is the first piece of governance work you will do for the organisation, and you will do it before you are even on the payroll.
This is the single biggest adjustment for anyone arriving from the commercial sector.
Your directors are members first and directors second. Many have never sat on a board before. They were elected by their peers, not appointed for a skills gap. And their reasons for being in the room vary far more than you expect. Some are there to advance the profession. Some are there to protect a particular segment of the membership. Some are there because nobody else put their hand up. Others are there for a political reason to progess their own personal agenda, or have a greivance against the sitting board.
Occasionally, someone is there because they wanted your predecessor gone, or because they wanted the job themselves.
You will not know which is which from the position description.
I am often invited to sit in on board meetings. In one I recall the directors spent three hours debating how badly government was treating their profession. Not what they would do about it. Not who would lead the advocacy. Three hours on the grievance itself. In another association, the first two hours of a board meeting went on the failings of the CEO who had already been terminated. The contracted minute taker was absolutley confused
Neither of those meetings was dysfunctional in the eyes of the people in the room. Both were, in fact, doing what volunteer boards naturally do: talking about the profession they love rather than governing the organisation that serves it. That distinction between the professional interest and the corporate entity is the one you will spend your first year managing.
What to do: In your first 60 days, sit down with every director individually, away from the boardroom. Ask two questions.
Why did you join this Board?
What do you want to achieve at the end of your term?
The answers will tell you more about how to lead the organisation than any handover document.
The appointment of a CEO sits with the Board. That is where the problem usually starts.
Board members often have a sound grasp of governance and deep expertise in their profession or industry. In our experience, it is rare that a Board fully understands the competencies required to run the association itself. So when they brief a recruitment company, they brief on what they know — the profession — and the recruiter follows the client. That is their job.
The result is an advertisement like this one, which I have seen versions of many times: a professional science association seeking a CEO with a degree or PhD in science and extensive experience in a science environment. Governance, advocacy, membership strategy, financial oversight and technology are mentioned nowhere, or buried at the bottom.
If you came from the profession, your professional credibility got you the job. It will not keep you in it. If you came from association management into an unfamiliar sector, expect the reverse: some directors will quietly question whether you really understand “people like us.”
Either way, there is a gap between the role you were hired for and the role that needs doing. The CEOs who succeed close that gap deliberately in the first six months. The ones who struggle discover it in year two, usually during a performance review.
What to do: Within your first month, ask the Chair to describe what success looks like in 12 months. Then ask two or three other directors the same question. If you get three different answers, you have just identified your first governance project — and it is more urgent than anything in your strategic plan.
Association leadership requires a genuinely unusual combination of capabilities. On any given month, an association CEO is expected to:
• Understand board governance and risk, particularly compliance with the constitution
• Support and develop the Board itself, including directors with no prior board experience
• Run a strategic planning process, and then actually implement the plan
• Identify the issues that are genuinely affecting members, not just the loudest ones
• Build relationships with members, sponsors, regulators and government
• Build a capable team of paid staff and volunteers
• Influence policy and policy makers
• Understand the financial position well enough to support a volunteer Treasurer
• Grow and retain membership, and develop products and services members will pay for
• Make sound decisions on websites, CRMs and association management systems
• Understand the events business, because for many associations it carries the budget
Nobody arrives with all of that. The mistake is not having gaps. The mistake is pretending you don't.
Technology deserves particular attention. Since the pandemic, platforms, event formats and member expectations have moved faster than most Boards' capacity to assess them. AMS and website decisions now land squarely on the CEO's desk, often within the first 18 months, and vendors are more than happy to fill any knowledge gap for you. Go into those conversations with independent advice. A platform decision made in year one will shape your operations, your data and your member experience for the next decade. In this space we must mention AI because everyone else is and it is very hard just to keep up with the changing environment. Join the Association Executive Services special interest groups or AES member networks to learn from others.
What to do: Audit yourself honestly against that list in your first month. Identify the two or three areas where you are weakest, and buy in the expertise from Association Executive Services rather than learning it live at the organisation’s expense.
In the commercial world there is usually a handover, a predecessor to call, a corporate memory. In associations, this frequently does not exist. Your predecessor may have left badly. They may also have been the only person who understood how anything actually worked, because in a small secretariat that knowledge lives in one head and walks out the door with it.
So induct yourself. Before your first board meeting, read the constitution — not the strategic plan, the constitution. It governs what you and the Board can and cannot do, and I have lost count of the number of association crises that came down to a Board acting outside its own rules without realising it.
Then work through:
• The last two years of board minutes, including the papers, not just the resolutions
• The current year-to-date financial position against budget, now that you have already read the audited accounts
• Membership numbers by category over five years, and renewal rates, not just totals
• Every contract with a term longer than 12 months
• The structure of committees and chapters if any and their relationship with the national body.
What to do: Give yourself four weeks on this before you commit publicly to any direction. You will only get one chance to ask naive questions with impunity. Use it.
The association sector needs professional CEOs, and it needs Boards that know how to appoint them and how to work with them. Right now we have too few of both.
If you are stepping into the role, my advice is straightforward: do your due diligence before you accept, understand your Board before you try to lead it, find out what you were really hired to do, be honest about your gaps, and read everything before you commit to anything.
And if you sit on a Board recruiting a CEO right now, here is my number one piece of advice.
Look for a professional association leader with experience across a range of associations. Industry knowledge can be learned. Association leadership, in my experience, mostly cannot.
Nick Koerbin is Executive Director of Association Executive Services AES has worked with association and not-for-profit Boards and CEOs across Australia and New Zealand for last last 16 years on all aspects of governance, strategy, secretariat services and executive advisory — and provides independent, neutral advice on all aspects of managing a NFP organisation. If you have recently taken up an association CEO role, or your Board is about to appoint one, get in touch for a confidential conversation.
Most associations can provide a long list of membership benefits. They may include professional development, advocacy, networking, industry information, events, resources, accreditation, discounts and access to specialist advice. However, a list of benefits does not necessarily explain why someone makes the decision to join.
While every Board is different, the same governance issues appear time and again. One of the most common is allowing one person’s behaviour
to dominate the Board table.
Almost every Board has experienced it at some point. One director who seems to consume more time and energy than everyone else combined.
A renewal invoice is not a request for last year's money. It is a request to pay for next year's benefits. The moment a member — individual or corporate — opens that invoice, they make a decision: renew, or walk.
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