In profile: Sarah Thompson

After a dynamic and successful seven-year career working in senior fundraising positions in the non-profit sector, Sarah Thompson (MSc Voluntary Sector Management, 2013) successfully applied to Cass Business School in order to build her credentials for chief executive roles. “I’ve always felt extremely ambitious,” she said, “I had been continually striving for chief executive but, as a fundraiser, I felt that I needed the breadth and depth of knowledge to prove that I had the skills required to succeed in the role.”

The Cass Centre for Charity Effectiveness (Cass CCE) is the leading non-profit and philanthropy centre in the UK and among the best in the world. With a vision to see a strong non-profit sector leading positive social change, the Centre’s reach extends to thousands of skilled leaders and managers across the world.

Almost four years after graduating from Cass, Sarah’s dream role of Chief Executive at St Clare Hospice became available. “The master’s degree enabled me to be taken seriously as someone who could cope with complex organisations. I’ve always aspired to work at St Clare’s; I was so happy to hear I’d been given the job,” she says.

The importance of strong leadership in the hospice sector is something that Sarah has always felt passionately about: “My mum was a nurse; she always spoke about hospices being better places for people coming to the end of their life.”

Against the changing landscape of the hospice sector, Cass CCE teamed up with Hospice UK to launch a new Hospice Leadership and Management module in 2017.

It is fitting that in 2018, the 70th anniversary of the NHS, the first intake of students from the Hospice Management pathway will commence their specialist teaching.

As Chief Executive of St Clare Hospice and a Cass alumna, Sarah has been nominated to join an advisory panel at Cass CCE. “Strong leadership within the hospice sector is so important,” she said. “This sector grew out of a grassroots movement 50 years ago, with local people deciding that care for the dying wasn’t good enough. They wanted to do something about it. Now, hospices are trying to strike a balance between community-led activism and excessive bureaucracy. It takes a lot of skill and leadership to be able to lead in this environment and to bring the public with you.”

Sarah says: “I have loved every minute of my career so far. The master’s degree taught me that it’s the beneficiaries I work for. I’m constantly asking myself, ‘What do I need to do to get this organisation to meet the needs of local people?’”

The hospice care sector supports more than 200,000 people with terminal and life-limiting conditions in the UK each year. With the NHS at a crucial tipping point, the creation of leaders like Sarah, who are equipped to make the best possible decisions, will be paramount to supporting communities up and down the country.