Introducing the ILM’s new Head of Professional Standards

The ILM is delighted to announce that we have appointed Paul Browne in to the newly created role, Head of Professional Standards.

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The new role has been identified as crucial to helping the ILM achieve our organisational objectives for continuing to improve standards across the sector.

Within his role as Head of Professional Standards, Paul will be working to broaden and deepen understanding of legacy management across our membership, the charity sector, and the wider probate environment.

As a long-time member of the ILM Board, and with many years’ experience working with Legacy Link Paul brings a wealth of knowledge and insight to the role. Paul says:

“I am deeply grateful to be joining the ILM on a full-time basis, having spent several years as a Director to date. I feel the role is a huge opportunity to grow the broader sector’s trust in the brilliant Legacy Administration carried out by so many of our members. I believe that by building up a dynamic and collaborative working collection of guidance and training, all may benefit. There is also the opportunity to build resilient bridges to all those involved in the wider process at all levels to ensure Legacy Administration is perceived by all as a force for good in terms of charity fundraising.”

Speaking on the appointment, James Stebbings, Chair of the ILM said:

“I am so excited to have appointed Paul to the role of Head of Professional Standards. I have been keen to create this role for many years as I think it is critical to us achieving our organisational objectives.

We are a small organisation which has been punching above our weight in terms of delivering training and materials. We have built up a large library of brilliant content and information but we haven’t brought that all together into one message. We need our materials and communications to have a consistent thread driven by a core philosophy about what good legacy management is. Paul will do this and will help communicate what being a legacy manager is all about. His experience and knowledge are second to none and he has established a huge amount of respect and goodwill that will be invaluable.

We are very excited to have him join us and to see how he takes us to where we want to be.”

James’ thoughts are echoed by Mathew Lagden, ILM CEO:

“I am delighted that Paul will be joining the ILM team in a full-time capacity, after several years as one of our Directors. Paul combines a deep level of knowledge with an ability to get things done, and I am really looking forward to working with him to make ILM even more effective in supporting our members and driving positive change across the Probate sector.”

Paul brings a wealth of varied experience to the role. Prior to his work in the Legacy sector, which many members will be familiar with, his work experience includes working on international channel development for UK scientific and manufacturing companies, national builders merchant distribution and retail banking. Paul was also a freelance technical consultant working on government IT projects and small business improvement.

Paul continues: “I have a long history of leading teams and technical business development before joining the Charity sector with Legacy Link under the direct guidance of Linda Norgrove and Crispin Ellison.

“Being a Legacy Officer has been the job of my life, working for Legacy Link, whilst being an ILM Director, has given me a broad exposure to the reality of Legacy Administration at all levels and I am totally committed to improvement of our work across the sector and beyond.”

Members of the ILM will have been aware that we started recruiting for this role in April, when we ran open applications. The selection process was both rigorous and competitive, with two rounds of interviews with several very high quality candidates. We are very grateful to the sector leaders who supported us in the recruitment. James concludes:

“We are so grateful to those who applied for this role. The standard of applications and the thinking and passion for the sector amongst candidates was striking. We were spoilt for choice. However, it was very clear how committed Paul is to the ILM and to doing this work. We know he is going to do an amazing job bringing together our content and to sharing this with the world.”  

Paul will begin in his new role in late July.