Leading With Purpose: The Power of Young Voices in Leadership

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Leading With Purpose: The Power of Young Voices in Leadership

Young voices aren’t just shaping Zest’s work—they’re leading it. Over the past four years, Zest have reimagined what it means for young people to take the lead. In January 2025, we celebrated two significant milestones: appointing two young trustees to our board and creating a paid leadership role within our youth advisory consultants, Future Proof. These announcements sparked conversations and questions about how we’ve achieved this. If you’re curious about our approach, this blog is for you.

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Zest Celebrates Youth Leadership with Trustee Appointments and New Paid Role

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Zest Celebrates Youth Leadership with Trustee Appointments and New Paid Role

Zest is proud to announce a significant step in its mission to amplify youth voices: the appointment of two young trustees and a newly created paid leadership role within Future Proof, Zest’s youth advisory consultants. These appointments mark a significant milestone in Zest’s commitment to embedding youth voice at every level of the organisation. From creative projects to governance, Zest has spent years developing pathways for young people to lead confidently, shaping its work and contributing to a growing movement for youth leadership across the arts sector.

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Future proofing Zest's 12 Maxims

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Future proofing Zest's 12 Maxims

At Zest, our Maxims underpin everything we do. These short statements share our key values and shape the work of our trustees, staff, creatives and performers. In December 2020, we asked Future Proof what they thought our maxims might be. As participants, they had never seen our maxims document before. The thoughts they shared were solely based on their experience of working with us. We soon realised there were 4 reoccurring themes that we hadn’t recognised as being key components of the Zest experience. Together we set about re-writing Zest’s Maxims.

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Is it possible to be future proof?

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Is it possible to be future proof?

Future-proofing a product, system or organisation gives it the ability to continue having value into the distant future. It stops the item becoming obsolete. But in these unprecedented times of continuing change, is it possible to be future proof? The young people from Zest’s new Youth Advisory Consultants have been discussing that question in recent weeks - discussions that indicate where they may lead Zest, whilst also giving an insight into how young people feel about their own future.

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