This year’s remuneration survey points to a clear governance message: how boards support, structure and invest in their secretariats increasingly shapes association performance and leadership retention.
Association leaders face greater policy volatility, sustained workloads and rising expectations around development, professional support and organisational clarity. Yet, as the most recent study results demonstrated, many associations still rely on informal practices, including discretionary salary reviews, limited benchmarking, ad hoc training budgets and weak succession planning.
The question this raises for boards is straightforward: is the secretariat managed as a strategic, long-term asset, or simply expected to absorb growing pressure?
