Sport England

We were asked by the England & Wales Cricket Board to find a new Chief Financial Officer who will deliver an innovative, forward-thinking business infrastructure internally at the ECB and across the cricket network.

After almost 7 years in post, Tim Hollingsworth OBE made the decision to step down from his role as CEO of Sport England. With the fiscal, social and political environment being markedly different, Sport England required a CEO to lead significant transformation across the organisation. There was a need for a laser focus on delivery through partnerships, and an individual with advanced stakeholder management capabilities coupled with an ability to navigate the governmental influence present in the ‘Arms Length Body’ environment.

Elevate Talent conducted a search encompassing the government, charity and corporate sectors. With organisational transformation at the fore, past experience was essential as were the leadership traits prevalent in effective ‘change’ leaders. Specific ‘sports’ experience was not essential, but the candidates needed to display strong alignment with the the mission to tackle the widespread inequalities seen in sport and physical activity. In tandem they needed to be capable of making difficult fiscal decisions, likely to be felt deeply across the sector. Candidates undertook multiple stages exposing them to Sector leaders alongside the nominations committee and interacting in across multiple formats (1:1, Panel, presentation) To this end, evaluation of leadership style, resilience and core drivers were paramount. Final candidates had extensive two Partner assessment and psychometric testing to build a picture of their approach.