Chair of Community & Indigenous Council (CIC Chair)

Position: Community & Indigenous Council Chair (CIC Chair) — The Global Centre for Risk & Innovation (GCRI) / Nexus Governance System
Type: Equity, legitimacy, and safeguards governance leadership role (non-executive; strictly non-executing)
Board: Council leaders are considered for Board nomination after joining and serving in good standing
Location: International (distributed, hybrid)
Term: 3 Years
Time commitment: Typically 10–24 hours per month (build-year cadence; surge periods around safeguards escalations, grievance matters, and high-impact releases)
Apply here: https://therisk.global/work/job/chair-of-community-indigenous-council-cic-chair/

Context and Purpose

Risk governance fails when it is technically correct but socially illegitimate—when communities experience harm without remedy, when participation is symbolic, when data and models extract without consent, or when decision systems amplify inequity. In high-risk contexts, these failures are not “reputation issues”; they are operational and moral failures that destroy trust and block adoption.

The Community & Indigenous Council Chair (CIC Chair) is the equity, legitimacy, and do-no-harm anchor of the Nexus governance system. The role convenes community leaders, Indigenous representatives, and practitioners of safeguards and participatory governance to ensure the system’s outputs respect rights, minimize harm, and provide credible channels for grievance and remedy. The CIC Chair ensures lived experience is structurally integrated into governance decisions—while preserving strict non-execution firewalls and maintaining disciplined handling for sensitive community and locality information.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and enforce do-no-harm requirements across governance outputs, including risk of exclusion, stigmatization, retaliation, displacement, or the publication of exploitable vulnerabilities.
• Ensure safeguards are applied early (design stage), not only after harm occurs.
• Maintain clear escalation thresholds and “stop-the-line” triggers when safeguards are inadequate.
• Ensure participation is real, safe, and structured: protected channels, anti-retaliation posture, informed consent where relevant, and respectful convening practices.
• Establish mechanisms for community challenge, feedback, and review that are time-bounded, recorded, and responded to with reasons.
• Prevent tokenism by ensuring community inputs can materially change outputs.
• Oversee grievance intake and remedy pathways (with appropriate officers/functions), ensuring that issues are acknowledged, routed, decided, and closed with documented outcomes.
• Ensure remedy is practical and verifiable: corrections, withdrawals, additional safeguards, or governance actions that address the underlying harm risk.
• Ensure remedy processes do not expose complainants or communities to further risk.
• Ensure community and Indigenous data, locations, and knowledge systems are handled with care: least-privilege access, controlled sessions where needed, and strict public-safe publication posture.
• Guard against extractive or exploitative data practices, including misuse of community information to justify decisions without reciprocal accountability.
• Ensure governance outputs explicitly address distributional effects: who benefits, who bears risk, who is excluded, and what mitigations exist.
• Promote standards for equity-aware measurement and monitoring, including the documentation of limitations and uncertainty where impacts are uneven.
• Build a credible pipeline of community and Indigenous participation across regions and contexts, ensuring representation is legitimate and not selected for convenience.
• Improve seat completeness and participation health while maintaining strong conflict and independence controls.

Compensation, Remuneration, and Expenses

• Governance authority is not paid. Compensation is never linked to votes, approvals, recognition decisions, enforcement actions, or outcomes. No success fees and no pay-to-influence dynamics.
• Operational workload may be compensated (where permitted). If build-year operational work is required (e.g., safeguards frameworks, participation protocols, grievance/remedy operations, localization playbooks), compensation may be provided only for defined operational services—scoped, deliverable-based, independently approved, and auditable.
• Expenses may be reimbursed. Reasonable, documented, pre-approved out-of-pocket expenses necessary to perform the role may be reimbursed in accordance with policy and handling requirements.
• Standing and independence apply. Continued service depends on good standing, disclosure compliance, and independence consistent with integrity requirements.

Opportunities for Leaders to Join

• Steward the legitimacy layer that determines whether the system is ethical, adoptable, and trusted in high-impact contexts.
• Build a safeguards and remedy architecture that makes participation real and prevents harm rather than merely responding to it.
• Influence global standards for equity-aware, community-safe risk governance—without drifting into execution or advocacy capture.
• Strong performance positions leaders for broader chairing responsibilities and board consideration (without implying entitlement).

Candidate Profile

We are seeking senior leaders (typically 12–20+ years) with credibility in one or more of:

• Indigenous governance, community leadership, rights-based safeguards, and participatory decision systems.
• Social safeguards, grievance mechanisms, remedy verification, and ethical governance in high-risk contexts.
• Community-centered resilience, disaster risk reduction, climate adaptation, public integrity, or humanitarian accountability.
• Multi-stakeholder convening requiring neutrality, confidentiality, and disciplined documentation.

Capabilities and Mindset

• Rights- and harm-aware judgment: can identify latent harms and insist on mitigations.
• High-integrity convening: respectful, non-extractive, and skilled in protected participation.
• Calm under pressure: can manage escalations and disputes without exposing communities to additional risk.
• Documentation discipline: converts lived experience into clear, actionable requirements and traceable outcomes.
• Boundary discipline: maintains strict non-execution posture and resists both commercial and advocacy capture.

Eligibility, Membership, and Independence

• Holds a primary full-time role outside the council seat and can commit sustained time at the expected cadence.
• Willing to fully disclose relevant interests (funding, affiliations, representation mandates) and comply with conflict-of-interest and recusal requirements.
• Not placed in a situation where service creates unmanageable conflicts, compromises neutrality, or undermines legitimate representation.
• Accepts strict confidentiality, handling discipline, and communications integrity expectations.
• Commits to remain in good standing (participation, disclosures, and applicable contribution obligations).