Amanda Batten, CEO of Contact - the charity for families with disabled children – strategist; campaigner; Agatha Christie fan; collaborator; and occasionally ‘a bit of a martyr’. (#3)

“What helps or hinders us is us, it’s how we are, managing stress and conflict, how resilient we are. Coaching has been really helpful in shining a light on those things.” Amanda Batten, CEO of Contact - the charity for families with disabled children – strategist; campaigner; Agatha Christie fan; collaborator; and occasionally ‘a bit of a martyr’. (#3) Amanda Batten is Chief Executive of Contact, the charity for families with disabled children and chair of the Disabled Children’s Partnership campaign. Amanda was previously director of external affairs at the National Autistic Society (NAS). While there she led a multi-award winning campaign to secure the Autism Act, the first ever condition-specific legislation. She played a key role supporting the development of autism strategies in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Amanda studied Economics and Politics at Birmingham University and holds an MSc Voluntary Sector Management from Bayes Business School. In this episode, we discuss a range of topics including the experience of becoming a Charity CEO; coaching; campaigning; diary management to maximise energy flow; Agatha Christie for recovery; the power of feedback and remembering to be less ‘martyrish’. For episode notes, links and other guests, please visit https://www.kedaconsulting.co.uk/charity-impact-podcast/ If you enjoy the podcast, please do follow us and leave a rating / review. If you have any questions, feedback or enquiries regarding the podcast, you can e-mail [email protected] or tweet @alexblake_KEDA This Podcast is brought to you by KEDA Consulting, which provides strategic consultancy support to charities. KEDA is led by Alex Blake who works as a management consultant, specifically for charities and non-profits in the UK, with the aim of maximising social impact. We help charities to be as effective as possible in delivering their charitable objectives through developing strategy and plans; securing funding; undertaking reviews; and a range of other consulting projects involving research, analysis, facilitation and reporting. The purpose of the Charity Impact podcast is to learn more about how effective charities and individuals achieve social change or social impact. This podcast is for anyone who wants to make a difference, but particularly those who are working for social change / impact; including charity trustees, CEOs, staff, volunteers, advisors, philanthropists and public service professionals.