How do you think you will be able to help others as a PBSL mentor?
As a mentor, I am able to help you grow both personally and professionally – aspiring to reach your full potential. I offer a unique blend of strategic wisdom, commercial acumen, financial expertise, operational excellence and individual personal development skills which can be tailored to meet your personal needs.
What type of knowledge and experience are you looking forward to sharing?
I am really looking forward to sharing my particular area of expertise in the sustainable transformation of underperforming businesses – specifically of professional sports clubs. As one of only a handful of independently accredited turnaround professionals within the UK, I feel that my knowledge and experience are extremely relevant for the challenges and uncertainty faced today.
In addition, I recently gained an MSc in Sports Directorship and have also trained as an executive coach in ‘performance under pressure’, and have started working with a number of elite athletes across a variety of sports to embed behaviours of continual performance improvement.
I am an experienced boardroom executive within businesses across a number of sectors and, for the last 9 years, within professional sport. My executive roles have included being Chief Executive Officer & Executive Management (at Darlington FC, Heart of Midlothian FC, Hartlepool FC), Non-Executive Director, Trustee and Board Advisor on an ongoing number of challenging assignments and businesses.
What were the key things you learnt from the mentor training?
The PBSL mentor training emphasised the importance for everyone (no matter what level of experience or job title you may hold) to have access to suitably experienced individuals who they can rely on as confidante, critical friend or independent sounding board – to develop their self-awareness and potential for ongoing performance improvement.
How do you think your career would have benefitted if had a mentor when first starting out in the sports industry?
There is little doubt that the availability of a trusted mentor would have been an absolute godsend in the early days of my career within sport. The executive roles I initially held brought considerable intensity under pressure and without a strong network of similarly minded, or well-connected individuals, familiar with the challenges I faced. I am sure that, in my early days working in sport, I may not have had as many sleepless nights had I been able to share my journey with a trusted mentor!