Roles and responsibilities in committees

Approved by Intersect Steering Committee on 2nd March 2026

This policy provides a high-level overview of the key rights, roles and responsibilities for the key bodies that make an Intersect Committee: Committee Members, Chairs (and vice-Chairs) and Secretaries. Future and separate documents will provide more detailed guides for each group, while this remains a way to easily see and compare the 3.

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Committee Members

This list covers key rights and responsibilities of Intersect members who are elected in an Intersect Committee, acknowledging that, regardless of any rewards which might be associated with the role, these remain volunteers.

Responsibilities

Committees are advisory bodies with different focuses (either on Cardano or Intersect). Because of this, their primary responsibilities are:

• Leveraging their experience and expertise to discuss and provide recommendations within the remit of the committee using their committee member voting rights

• Working towards the agreed committee goals

• Participating in committee activities both during official committee sessions and asynchronously, as needed

• Supporting the socializing of the committee’s recommendations with the purpose of collecting feedback (which might include both asynchronous methods or open public discussions)

Failing to fulfil the above responsibilities without reason might result in dismissal or replacement of the member (as per dismissal replacement policy)

If execution of some action is needed, then once a recommendation is made, that can be handled:

• By the secretary (or broader Intersect staff); and/or

• By a working group steered by the Committee (where committee members themselves, general members or associates and staff can also join); and/or

• Directly by committee members if they want to volunteer extra time; and/or

• By finding vendors within the community via an open and transparent process

Committee members are recommended:

• To actively bring relevant proposals and ideas to the committee discussion

• To engage in public discussions both on the Intersect members channel (discord) and on any other external forum (making always sure to separate personal opinions vs. the committee’s official recommendations)

• To support and mentor members, especially during elections, sharing their expertise as a committee members and what helped them contribute in that role

*Beyond what is mentioned above, detailed expectations may vary committee by committee, depending on its specific remit

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Committee Chair (and Vice-chair)

This list covers key responsibilities of Intersect members who are elected in an Intersect Committee, and then get elected by the committee in a Committee Chair position or Vice-Chair position.

The primary responsibilities of the Chair are to:

• Represent the Committee in the Intersect Steering Committee as a voting seat

  • Attend ISC meetings

  • Ensure alignment with other committees and the Board

    • Escalate issues to Board when necessary

  • Bring broader intersect updates from ISC into the committee

• Broadly represent the committee in major events such as Intersect Town Halls or during Committee elections

• If a committee has an assigned budget from treasury, sign contracts and milestones

• Decide with the Vice-chair how and whether to split responsibilities

  • Document the assignment of responsibilities

• In relation to voting, if the committee has an even amount of members, act as tie breaker

• Together with the secretary

  • Steer the committee to work within the committee remit providing yearly goals and actioning them within the sessions

  • Planning, and prioritize items based on urgency and strategic relevance

  • Track committee members participation and address inactivity

  • Ensure committee members follow existing policies and codes of conduct

  • Check minutes and all key data are correctly documented and publicly available

  • Reply to questions for committee in different channels like discord or X

  • Guard a healthy meeting

The primary responsibilities of the Vice-Chair are to:

• Support the Chair in their duties and cover the duties of the Chair when the Chair is not available

• Maintain full situational awareness of the committee’s agenda and its decisions in order to adequately support the Chair, by for example joining meetings where Chair is invited (as appropriate)

Secretary

The primary responsibilities of the Secretary are to:

• Maintain all Committee documentation, including the committee minutes and records of committee decisions

• Prepare with Chair (and Vice-Chair) meeting agendas and socialise these with committee members

• Manage the Committee communication channels (including any Discord, slack, telegram and social channels) in accordance with Intersect policies and reply to questions for committee in different channels such as discord or X

• Manage the committee calendar in accordance with Intersect policies

• Manage general operational committee tools in accordance with Intersect policies

• Manage and maintain the committee delivery plan

• Manage activities related to Committee elections, including supporting onboarding of new members

• Ensure Committee and committee members follow the Code of Conduct

• Ensure committee members follow existing policies

• Ensure there is a sufficient quorum when voting occurs

• Ensure compliance with Robert's rules during vote process

• Maintain meeting pace to agenda provided

• Maintain rolling agenda items that require more than a single meeting to complete