[Christopher Girodat]

We have an executive director (me!) and I’m supported by an executive assistant. I’m responsible for the operations side of the house, and I report to the board of directors collectively. I have overall responsibility and accountability for the organization’s operations. The president leads the board’s collective role of “supervising management” but the president, individually, doesn’t have any independent authority over me nor can they overturn my operational decisions without a board vote.

That being said, in practice, a good working relationship between the president and the executive director, including deep conversation about what the president and the board are hearing from students, can help to ensure that those disagreements can be “negotiated” before they become an issue. If I can tell that a disagreement is approaching an impasse, and there’s agreement that the president and the board will own the consequences, I’d say that it’s good practice to defer to elected leadership unless there’s a major risk or compliance issue that’s complicating things.

Attaching a graphic of our accountability structure (CUPE 1004 is our staff union, for context).