The British & Irish Society of Animal Science (BISAS) needed a versatile membership professional who could take ownership of a broad outward-facing role and help shape the Society’s next chapter.
With membership growing, new initiatives launching and longer-term succession planning underway, the British & Irish Society of Animal Science (BISAS) needed a versatile membership professional who could take ownership of a broad outward-facing role and help shape the Society’s next chapter.
The British & Irish Society of Animal Science (BISAS) is a learned society working across animal science and agriculture, bringing together a highly engaged community of members, trustees and professionals with a shared interest in advancing the sector.
Since CEO Maggie Mitchell joined in 2019, BISAS has undergone a significant period of positive change. Membership has grown from approximately 240 to 600 over seven years, the Society broke even in the previous financial year and has built healthy reserves, creating strong foundations for its next stage of development.
Just as importantly, BISAS has developed a genuinely friendly, supportive and collaborative culture, with highly engaged trustees and members and a working environment that is collegiate rather than overly corporate.
With that progress established, BISAS was ready to make an important new appointment.
BISAS partnered with Membership Bespoke to recruit a Membership & Marketing Manager, reporting directly to the CEO.
This was deliberately a broad, outward-facing role rather than a traditional membership position. The successful candidate would take responsibility for several important areas of the Society’s work, including:
While conference delivery itself would continue to be managed by a professional conference organiser, the new manager would play an important role in marketing and supporting these events.
There were also several immediate priorities. BISAS wanted to improve retention and re-engage lapsed members, launch its new awards programme, relaunch the Professional Register and begin developing a stronger in-house marketing capability.
One particularly important aspect of the brief was flexibility.
BISAS wasn't looking for somebody who fitted a rigid working pattern. The role was designed as 32 hours per week, fully remote within the UK, and could be structured across four days, four days across five, or potentially around school hours.
That opened the opportunity to a much broader talent pool, including experienced mid-career professionals, people returning after a career break and parents looking for greater flexibility without stepping away from a meaningful and responsible role.
What mattered was finding somebody with the right combination of experience, personality and willingness to get involved.
The ideal candidate needed at least five years' post-university experience, ideally with exposure to areas such as animal science, agriculture, farming, zoology, academia or learned societies, alongside relevant experience in membership recruitment and retention, event marketing and sponsorship development.
Cultural fit was equally important. BISAS needed someone friendly, approachable, proactive and comfortable working within a small organisation where flexibility matters and people naturally step in to help when required.
There was another important dimension to the search.
With Maggie the CEO planning to retire within the next two to five years, BISAS is thinking carefully about how its structure should evolve over that period.
The longer-term intention is to move towards two complementary areas of responsibility: an outward-facing role focused on membership, marketing, sponsorship and engagement, alongside an operations-focused role covering administration, finance, secretariat and governance.
This meant the Membership and Marketing Manager wasn't simply being recruited to meet today's needs. BISAS needed somebody capable of becoming an important part of the Society's future structure.
The breadth of the role made understanding the brief particularly important.
Rather than searching for somebody who matched a conventional job title, Membership Bespoke focused on the combination of skills and sector experience BISAS actually needed, recognising that the strongest candidate could come from several different professional backgrounds.
Our specialist knowledge of recruitment across membership organisations, professional bodies and learned societies allowed us to identify candidates with relevant membership and engagement experience while also considering professionals from the wider animal science, agriculture, farming, zoology and academic communities.
We also looked beyond experience on paper.
For a small, collaborative organisation such as BISAS, the successful appointment needed to be someone who could work independently in a remote environment, build strong relationships with members and stakeholders, move comfortably between strategic and hands-on work and genuinely enjoy being part of a friendly, flexible organisation.
The flexibility offered by BISAS was also an important part of the recruitment proposition, allowing us to reach experienced candidates for whom a traditional five-day office-based role might not have been attractive or practical.
Membership Bespoke supported BISAS through a focused recruitment process designed to identify a small number of strong candidates for interview with CEO Maggie Mitchell, current President Helen Warren and incoming President Nick Johnson.
Timing was important, with BISAS keen to make the appointment ahead of its Annual Conference in York, ideally enabling the successful candidate to attend and begin meeting members and stakeholders even if their formal start date came slightly later.
Membership Bespoke successfully placed BISAS’s new Membership & Marketing Manager, securing an experienced professional with the right blend of membership, marketing and engagement expertise, alongside the hands-on, flexible approach that was so important to the Society.
The appointment gives BISAS dedicated capability to support its growing membership, strengthen its marketing and engagement activity and help deliver the Society’s ambitions for the years ahead.
It is a great example of how a flexible role can still be an ambitious one, and how looking beyond a conventional job description can open the door to experienced people with exactly the combination of skills a membership organisation needs.
“We knew this was an important appointment for BISAS, not just for what we need now, but for where we want to go next. Membership Bespoke really understood the breadth of the role and the kind of person who would work well in our team. The process felt straightforward and personal throughout, and we were really pleased with the quality of the candidates they introduced.”
Maggie Mitchell,
Chief Executive, British & Irish Society of Animal Science