Chair and members of the board of trustees volunteer volunteer roles

Treasurer

Terms of Reference

Introduction

Emergency Nutrition Network (ENN) is a UK-registered charity dedicated to reducing global malnutrition through knowledge exchange, research, and advocacy. Since its founding, ENN has worked at the forefront of nutrition thought leadership, enabling evidence-based programming and policy development to improve nutrition outcomes in low- and middle-income countries and crisis settings.

We work in close partnership with national governments, UN bodies, NGOs, academic institutions, and funders to strengthen the design and delivery of nutrition interventions. Our areas of expertise include infant and young child feeding in emergencies, the management of wasting and stunting, adolescent nutrition, and maternal and infant care for at-risk groups, including through our MAMI initiative. ENN also publishes Field Exchange, a globally recognised technical publication in humanitarian nutrition.

Our vision is a world where ‘Every individual confronted by malnutrition has access to the knowledge, tools, services and resources they require to meet their needs’.

ENN is governed by a diverse and skilled Board of Trustees, who provide strategic direction and ensure that the organisation operates in line with its charitable objectives and legal obligations. Our trustees play a vital role in upholding ENN’s values: independence, integrity, collaboration, and field-driven insight.

We are now seeking a Treasurer to join our Board of Trustees, oversee financial governance, and support ENN’s strategic direction as we enter our next phase of growth and impact.

For more information about ENN, visit our website.

The Treasurer Role

Being an ENN Trustee is an important, influential and valuable role and as well as ensuring that we are an accountable and well governed organisation you will make an important contribution to our current work and future direction.

The Treasurer plays a vital role in overseeing the charity’s financial performance and sustainability; leading the Finance sub-committee (FSC) to inform the board in its decision making.

Specific responsibilities include:

• Guide the board in its understanding of ENN’s financial strategy, budget management and risk oversight.
• Chair the Finance sub-committee, ensuring well-structured and inclusive discussions, clear decision making, and effective follow-up on actions.
• Relationship with the Finance Manager: Build a strong, supportive, and transparent relationship with the FM. Providing guidance and challenge as a critical friend and ensuring effective communication between the Board and the Management Team on financial strategy.
• Advise on Auditor identification, engagement and management.
• Oversight of ENN’s Reserves Policy and management
• Oversee compliance with UK Charity and Company Law.
• Review of ENN’s financial systems and reporting, to the extent they serve project delivery, transparency and accountability.
• Approval of ENN’s Banking and Investments
• Backstopping technical resource to Finance Manager, CEO and Chair.
• Reporting any financial improprieties or misconduct

· Attend quarterly Board and finance sub-committee meetings and contribute to strategic development

· Safeguard, respect and demonstrate ENNs values, policies and reputation

Required Knowledge and Skills

· Extensive senior management experience in finance, with relevant qualifications (AAT / ACCA or

· equivalent)

· Experience in overseeing annual audits, identifying and managing auditors

· Understanding of the role of a Trustee and how Trustees can interact with ENN’s Management Team to best

· effect.

· Experience of multiple income/project organisations.

· Experience in the not-for-profit sector is desirable.

· Prior experience of working with or on a board is desirable.

· Strong inter-personal and relationship-building skills

Time Commitment – And our Commitment to You

Your commitment in an average year is likely to be 3 pre-fixed board meetings, each of half a day.  Each of these are preceded by sub-committee meetings, usually of ninety-minutes, and each trustee is expected to allocate time to prepare for all meeting and participate in one sub-committee. The Treasurer chairs the Finance sub-committee.  Other committee and ad hoc meetings and additional support will be arranged as agreed. We encourage active participation and engagement, and Trustees often give more time outside of this, on their own terms.

Trustees serve a four-year term, renewable once.

Board meetings are held virtually, with an intention to hold one facilitated face to face meeting at, or near, the ENN office in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, every two years.  Sub-committee meetings are convened remotely. 

Ideally you will join the Board in 2026, though we can show some flexibility for the right candidate, and in your first few months you should allow for additional time for induction and orientation (including meeting a number of the Leadership Team). 

Remuneration

This is an unpaid, voluntary position.  Reasonable expenses will be reimbursed for attendance at Board meetings and other Trustee activities in line with ENN’s policies.  Some employers encourage and enable trusteeship as part of wider career development and corporate social responsibility; please check with your organisation and their relevant policies. 

Our Values and Commitment to Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

ENN is committed to diversity and inclusion, and to building a culture where every staff member and volunteer is recognised and valued as an individual.  We actively encourage applications from a broad range of experiences and backgrounds and are particularly interested in improving representation of younger people and minority ethnic groups on our Board.

To Apply

If you believe you’re the candidate we’re looking for, please submit a CV and a covering letter of no more than 2 pages describing your motivation for applying and how your skills and experience match the role requirements.

If you would like to discuss the role and ENN’s wider remit, you are welcome to visit our website and contact Nigel Tricks, ENN’s CEO. For more day-to-day questions regarding the recruitment process, please contact our HR team. 

Closing date for applications: 23:00 Hrs.  20th June 2026

Screening Checks

All candidates who we progress will be screened through Accuity World Compliance to comply with counter terrorism and financial sanctions regulations. Appointment will be subject to a satisfactory enhanced DBS check (or equivalent criminal records check where available, for non-UK citizens) and 2 satisfactory references.  If you already have a transferrable enhanced DBS, please state this in your application.

Useful Information

Further information, including the ENN Strategy 2024 - 2028 and our latest Annual Report, is available via the ENN website.  

Additional Information About ENN

A Letter from the Board of Trustees

At ENN we are truly passionate about what we do. Over the past 30 years ENN has become a powerful and recognised name in the nutrition sector, working with others to influence outcomes around the world. We produce highly regarded research and publications that inform and inspire practitioners worldwide and we convene technical interest groups and communities of practice who are the ‘go to’ networks for their specialisms. Our partners know and trust ENN for quality, rigour and impartiality.  Our work makes a real difference in the lives of children in some of the most difficult parts of the world. The ENN-led Operational Guidance on Infant Feeding in Emergencies has become the key global policy guidance and has been endorsed by the World Health Assembly, and our technical leadership and convening has facilitated real change in awareness and a new narrative, challenging siloed approaches to Wasting and Stunting management.

Our work has never been more important. Nutritional challenges are growing across the world; undernutrition rates may be slowly decreasing but other forms of malnutrition are on the rise.  The positive progress that is being made is unequal and many countries are now facing the double burden of both under and over nutrition. Crises around the world are increasingly protracted and the historical and artificial silos of ‘humanitarian’ and ‘development’ don’t reflect real needs which are much more fluid. Emerging threats, such as the broader impact on nutrition of the COVID-19 pandemic bring new challenges to address.

At present our annual turnover is around £1.5m, we employ 20+ staff and engage up to a dozen consultants. With our 2024-28 strategy, we are keen to drive even greater impact by exploring new and innovative approaches and increasing our reach further still. We do so with funding in place from a range of institutional partners and private foundations.

As an organisation working across numerous technical areas relevant for countries experiencing high burden of malnutrition, we look to the board, and those trustees with a more technical focus in particular, to discuss new opportunities and challenges to ensure we maintain a responsive and balanced portfolio.  Trustees help us further develop our network, funding and connections, and help us navigate the important work we do to influence structural and impactful change in the sector, including advising in situations where there is potential for strategic risk. We are looking for a Finance professional to join the board, who can bring their knowledge and extensive experience to this role.

We hope the enclosed information helps you to explore ENN and the role.

With best wishes,

The ENN Board of Trustees

Vision

Our vision is:  ‘Every individual confronted by malnutrition has access to the knowledge, tools, services and resources they require to meet their needs’

Our History

Founded in 1996 in Ireland, ENN has a long and rich history in global nutrition.  Following an evaluation of the Great Lakes Emergency in 1995, implementing agencies identified an urgent need to establish a vehicle for capturing programming experiences and preserving institutional memory in the emergency food and nutrition sector. This gave rise to ENN’s publication, Field Exchange, which was first produced in 1996, designed to stimulate critical thinking and learning, influence research agendas and cross-fertilise information and exchange.  ENN was generously hosted by Trinity College Dublin for its first eight years, before relocating to Oxfordshire in 2004 and is now a UK registered Charity.

"To me, ENN is one of the most long-standing focal points for emergency nutrition technical information and coordination." (ENN partner)

Who We Are Now

Our Strategy aims to enhance the effectiveness of nutrition policy and programming by improving knowledge, stimulating learning, building evidence and providing support and encouragement to practitioners and decision-makers involved in nutrition and related interventions.  We take a particular lens on fragile and conflict affected, and high burden, states.  We have three core principles guiding our work:

· Independent, neutral and impartial

ENN is not bound by the views or positions of any one institution and is not a nutrition implementing agency. Any opinions expressed are based on the available evidence and the experience of our rich and diverse network.

· Driven by our network

ENN’s network is made up of practitioners, decision-makers and academics working on nutrition and associated fields all over the world. By supporting their learning and sharing their knowledge, ENN is able to make a unique contribution to turning knowledge into practice.

· Based on experiential learning and evidence

ENN believes that policy and practice can, and should be, informed by evidence and experience. Where this exists, ENN seeks to share the learning from this evidence and experience; where it is missing, ENN advocates for it to be developed or directly supports, and often brokers, its development.

Our People

ENN’s team is made up of a range of technical experts in nutrition, with decades of collective experience, and a small operational team.  ENN’s Management Team comprises of the CEO, 1 (of two) Technical Director, a Finance Manager, the HR Manager,  the Communications and Digital Manager and a Projects Coordinator Lead. As well as our staff, we engage a significant number of experienced specialist consultants on our projects.  ENN is highly committed to diversity and inclusion, to enabling and promoting flexible working for our staff, and to supporting continued professional development.

Our Governance

ENN is a UK-registered charity (Charity Registration Number: 1115156) governed by the Board of Trustees and a set of ‘Articles of Association’. The Board is currently comprised of 8 Trustees and meets regularly throughout the year, with full board meetings on a quarterly basis. The Board currently has three sub-committees: the Governance & People SC, the Technical SC and the Finance sub-committee, which are responsible for ensuring the highest standards in terms of finance, personnel, and technical expertise and application.

As a UK-registered Charity, ENN also files accounts as a UK-registered Company with Companies House (Company Registration Number 04889844).

 Our Finances

ENN is financially supported by a range of institutional donors (including the Irish Government, the EU), charitable foundations (including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Eleanor Crook Foundation), as well as UN agencies and INGOs.