Women in Leadership Spotlight: Nina Walker

We’re delighted to kick off our Women in Leadership Q&A series with Nina Walker, Chief Engagement Officer at RNIB. With almost two decades in fundraising and engagement, from the Prince’s Trust to senior leadership roles at the Stroke Association before joining RNIB, Nina combines strategic rigour with a restless curiosity for “how things join up” across fundraising, partnerships, brand and communications.

At RNIB, she leads a broad engagement remit focused on inspiring public action and shifting public perceptions about blind and partially sighted people. In this conversation, she explains how RNIB is building an integrated engagement framework, what it takes to lead across functions at the executive level, and the practical tactics she uses to turn awareness into action at scale. Nina is refreshingly pragmatic: expect thoughtful, tactical answers about inclusion, data-driven journeys, and the everyday work of nurturing the next generation of leaders.

Read on for Nina’s candid reflections on leading at scale, creative ways to broaden supporter involvement, and the small but powerful leadership practices she leans on every day

1. You’ve had a long career across fundraising and engagement, starting at The Prince’s Trust and later holding senior roles at the Stroke Association before joining RNIB. Looking back, what early experiences most shaped the way you think about public engagement and supporter strategy?

I love a challenge and I think my first experience was reacting to an unexpected challenge about the worth of my role (more on that another time!) Since then, I’ve loved looking at a problem, asking lots of questions and figuring out how to join the dots and champion alternative solutions which usually point to a more integrated and collaborative approach. I might be ready to admit that I’m an optimist. 

2. At RNIB you lead a very broad engagement remit - public fundraising, strategic partnerships, philanthropy, brand and communications. How do you make sure those disciplines work together as one coherent engagement strategy rather than a series of separate campaigns?

Well, we’re on a real journey with this! In the last two years or so, we have built (and built ourselves around) an engagement framework which guides how RNIB interacts with all customers - supporters of all kinds and those who want to engage with our support offer. RNIB is a biggish organisation that can feel like a ship to turn - but we’re at a tipping point towards understanding that whilst customer needs and motivations are wide-ranging, they all have one goal at their core. For us, that is belonging; facilitating deep personal change is vital and can absolutely be the catalyst for wide-reaching societal change. That is really what led to the change in remit and structure - to ensure we reflect our org-wide strategy in our external narrative with a much more strategic and nimble marketing and fundraising team driving that.

3. You moved from Director of Public Income and Engagement to Chief Engagement Officer. How has your leadership approach changed as the role has expanded, and what have you learned about leading across functions at that scale?

There are big pros and big cons of moving from SLT to ELT. I didn’t attach myself to any particular theories or models and I started to write down when things felt good and didn’t - rather than *always* saying it out loud. I also think I will forever test / fail / learn on what to involve myself with and what not to. Trusting my fellow t-shaped leaders is critical. Do I deeply understand pension management? No. Do I go into bat on anything and everything that affects customer experience and engagement? 100%. 

4. Mass engagement and supporter experience have been central to your roles. What practical tactics or approaches have you found most effective for inspiring widespread public involvement and turning awareness into action?

Venn diagrams! People don’t fit neatly into one box so when we focus on principles over perfection, we can open up our thinking a bit. As someone with a strong preference for consistency and “everything in its place”, this challenges me every day.

5. RNIB’s work explicitly aims to shift societal perceptions about blind and partially sighted people. How do you ensure engagement activity is inclusive and genuinely representative and how do you measure whether your work is changing minds and behaviours, not just raising income?

On paper this is easy, right?! We have operational metrics stacked up to big, slow-moving key results and we have an *incredible* team that really pushes us to dig deeper on lived experience and representation. Big shout-out to our Social Media team who do this with a playful thoughtfulness every day. But it’s really an influencing and partnership job - we’re levelling up how we ‘call in’ the big players in the advertising world to really live up to the expectations of disabled customers.

6. The sector faces growing pressure from digital change, rising expectations from supporters, and tighter budgets. Where do you see the biggest opportunities for teams to innovate in engagement over the next few years?

It’s 100% data, digital and tech driving content, journeys and relationships. It’s fascinating and inspiring and I can see other organisations within and outside our sector doing this really well. (Surprise surprise…) We’ve just implemented a new CRM which places supporter engagements closer to services and volunteer interactions. We need to leapfrog ourselves, not play catch-up and this is our springboard - we can use insight to drive better interactions, if we harness the opportunity and the right tools and partners.

7. As a senior leader, what practical steps do you take day-to-day to nurture the next generation of leaders - especially women - and what advice would you give to those aiming for a leadership role in engagement, comms or fundraising?

I try to be approachable, available and open to feedback - and as transparent as possible. I know the days and weeks can run by but I’m writing this in the new year of 2026, with a new CEO arriving, knowing I want to work much harder at this with my team and my Executive leadership colleagues, most of whom I’m happy to say are women.

8. Finally, what’s one career lesson you’ve learned that you’d want others to carry forward?

It’s the rowing analogy - if you want to go faster, go alone, but if you want to go further, go together. We can all articulate the change we believe in (and doing that well is half the game) but it’ll only work if we genuinely collaborate.
 

We can’t wait to hear more from Nina and our full panel during the live session on 12th February. Keep an eye on our blog over the coming weeks, where we’ll be sharing more Q&As with our speakers, including Louise Firth, Director of Engagement at Ronald McDonald House Charities UK.

Do you want to join the conversation? Registration for the event is free, but places are limited. If you’d like to be added to our waitlist, please send an email to: jael@thetalentset.co.uk.