I'm writing to let you know about the upcoming changes to the leadership structure in 2024.

For the last eight months, Neil King has been acting in the role of Interim Chief Operating Officer, in addition to his ongoing role as Executive Director of Treasury and Investment Services and CEO of Uniting Financial Services. During this time, considerable work has been undertaken to review and discern the optimal structure for the Synod Office teams. As a result of this work, the Synod Board has agreed to a new leadership structure that we believe will set us up for sustained delivery and success.

In the new structure, there will no longer be a COO. Instead, two new General Manager roles will be created, with smaller, more focused teams.

The first new role is the General Manager – Services, Partnership and Delivery. This role will have oversight of the Risk and Compliance, Legal, People and Culture, and Finance and the Property Teams. They will work to streamline and develop the shared services functions and other services that we provide across the Synod. They will also assist and provide leadership in coordinating and developing major strategic projects.

We will be advertising for this role in the coming days, and I encourage you to share this with your networks.

The second new role is General Manager – Communications, Collaboration and Information. This role will have direct oversight over Marketing and Communications, Information Management, Information Technology, Board and Committees Management, Strategic Engagement and Services Relationship Management.

The Communications, Collaboration and Information Team will work to align, lead and coordinate Synod Services messaging, communication and collaboration across all channels, systems and activities while also leading and developing an ‘Information Governance Framework’. This will ensure a coordinated strategy for the use and protection of all Synod information. It will also provide suitable, stable and safe technology solutions to support the Synod while assisting and providing leadership in coordinating and developing major strategic projects.

Both new roles will report to Neil King. This will allow us to continue to build on the excellent work of the last few months and creating new opportunities to collaborate across the Synod.

I'm very pleased to announce that Dan Andrew has accepted the role of General Manager – Communication, Collaboration and Information and will get started in that role when we return in January.

In addition to the leadership structure changes, the Synod Leadership Team has also done some reflection on how our teams are named. As a result, we have made some changes to reflect our purpose better. We hope these changes will help us when we engage in our daily work.

In future, we will collectively be known as Synod Mission Services and will no longer be using the name Synod Office. Neil’s teams will now be known as the Mission Support teams. The Secretariat team name will remain unchanged.

The Mission and Education teams will now be known as Mission Resourcing while still retaining the strong Uniting Mission and Education brand.

You can find out more about the changes in Uniting Mission and Education here.

Download the new structure diagram here.