Meet Tavengwa Tavengwa

Trustees play a vital role in providing strategic guidance and governance, ensuring charities can deliver essential services to communities across Ireland. Here we chat to Tavengwa Tavengwa, a Board Member with GOAL.

Can you tell us a little about you?

I’m a Partner at EY Ireland where I am the market lead in the provision of Technology Controls Assurance Services. I assist businesses in understanding and responding to emerging IT risks introduced at an accelerated pace and with ever increasing complexity. Outside of my day job I am also a Board Member with GOAL.

What inspired you to become a Charity Trustee?

My Mom got a job as a health promoter. There are organisations out there that are not associated with your country that I could actually help. That was a testament to the power of charities.

What does being a Chairty Trustee mean to you?

Professionally, I found it was additive to my own leadership style, leadership skills and way of thinking and problem solving.

What did you find most surprising about becoming a Trustee?

When I read the first annual board report and I saw faces of people supported in crisis and struggling with poverty, I realised how significant an impact we had.

What advice would you give to someone considering becoming a Trustee?

As a trustee, when you come in, what you have already is unique and it will be additive to the board. What I found probably more important is willingness to ask courageous questions.

What one word would you use to sum up being a Trustee?

The people like you and me who are doing a job like you and me getting up in the morning, going to work and then going into crisis or going into war zones. To see and work with those super heroes, for me, awesome is the only way to describe it.

Ready to put your hand up and join a charity board?