Why Sports Conference 2018

John Herriman
CEO
Greenhouse Sports

John joined Greenhouse Sports as Chief Executive in 2016. The charity provides intensive sports coaching and mentoring to young people in state schools and the community across some of London’s most socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods. A former Navy Diver who completed Commando training with the Royal Marines, John is passionate about creating opportunities for young people to develop, particularly through sport, and knows first hand the benefits of challenge in a well structured environment. Qualified as a teacher John also worked at a senior level in both the public and private sectors. He now lectures on a global MBA programme with a personal interest in CSR and the way it can help to tackle some of the deep inequalities existing in society today. John is also privileged to be a Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London, a role through which he is actively involved in strategies to support community and social integration.

Yvonne Harrison
Managing Director
Project `92

Yvonne was appointed as Managing Director of Project 92 in March 2018, after leading Greater Manchester Charity, GreaterSport, as their Chief Executive for four years. Having spent over fifteen years within the sport and physical activity landscape, Yvonne has a wealth of experience across the sector incorporating strategic development, relationship management, finance, business planning and communications. Yvonne has been a key driver to galvanize the Greater Manchester network to produce Greater Manchester Moving, the blueprint for physical activity and sport across the City Region, as Greater Manchester trailblazes with radical reform of the health and social care system through devolution and begins to implement Sport England’s local delivery pilot. Yvonne led GreaterSport to multiple awards, before leaving to embark on a new challenge, working with the ‘Class of 92’ across their sport and education portfolio, which includes the brand new University venture UA92 in Trafford. Yvonne joined the Board of Why Sports Media Group in 2017 following a positive working relationship with the Founders and recognising the contribution she could make through her experience and network. Yvonne is enjoying helping the social enterprise realise its objectives and ensuring customers of Why Sports experience great content, networking and cutting edge thinking through the series of conferences and panel debates delivered.

David Beardmore
Commercial Director
The Open Data Institute

David leads the ODI’s commercial, business development and marketing activities. His 20+ years in data-driven insight and marketing have seen him work with many leading brands in multiple sectors and countries. In addition to working for some of the largest players in the data world such as Experian, Callcredit and Telefonica, David also ran his own boutique data insight business, Thinkdata, for 5 years before its acquisition by Bertelsmann. David’s work is characterised by passion, pragmatism and a fierce determination to deliver measurable value to clients. He also loves to challenge the status quo in order to find better ways of doing things. Originally a classically trained musician, David has a Masters from Cambridge and an MBA in Marketing. Ever the optimist, he continues to hold a season ticket at Nottingham Forest.

Jane Frost
CEO
Market Reseach Society

Jane Frost is CEO of MRS, the UK’s professional body for research which also regulates the UK sector, campaigning for better standards in data use via its trust mark Fair Data. MRS champions research and insight to government and business. MRS is the world’s oldest research association and represents both individuals and companies, qualifying researchers around the world. Jane spent 8 years at senior levels in government, spearheading customer intelligence and strategy, latterly in HM Revenue & Customs, for which work she received the CBE. With an international career working on brands like Shell, the BBC and Unilever, Jane has over 150 creative and marketing awards to her credit, including for the BBC’s record breaking “Perfect Day” campaign. She has always said that great insight was key to organisational transformation. At the BBC, she was part of readying technology businesses for sale. Jane is Vice-Chair of Fairtrade and a trustee of the Lowry, on the advisory board of WIRe as well as being a trustee of the sector charity MRBA and Archive, AMSR.

Mike Farrar
Swim England and Independent Management Consultant
NHS Confederation

Andy Dalby-Welsh
Deputy Chief Executive
Activity Alliance

In 2017 Andy joined EFDS from the Change Foundation where he acted as Director of Operations and Partnerships. As Deputy Chief Executive of EFDS, Andy provides executive and strategic leadership alongside the CEO Barry Horne. In 2004, Andy set up Sport for Choice - a project creating sporting opportunities for blind and visually impaired young people for which he was recognised at the Pride of Britain Awards in 2009. ...

Paul Roberts
Director
My Customer Lens

Paul Roberts is CEO of MyCustomerLens, the insight platform driving customer-led growth for the sports and physical activity sector. Paul has spent the past 20 years helping commercial and sports organisations around the world to achieve customer & revenue growth by improving customer experiences. The ‘secret’ to their success has been adopting an ‘outside-in’ perspective; seeing their world from the customers’ point of view. Maintaining this perspective is hard work, so Paul founded MyCustomerLens to speed up and simplify the process of creating actionable customer insights.

Lisa O`Keefe
Director of Insight
Sport England

Former Scottish rugby international Lisa O’Keefe joined Sport England’s South East office in 2000 having started her career in the Financial Sector. During her time at Sport England she held a variety of roles including Head of Sports Development, Head of Delivery, and Interim Regional Director before moving to Sport England’s national office in 2007 as Head of National Sport. In July 2008 she was appointed Director of Sport responsible for the design and implementation of the National Governing Body of Sport investment. Following the creation of a new Directorate, Lisa was appointed Director of Insight in 2013. During her playing career, Lisa won 45 Scotland international rugby caps between 1994 and 2006 and competed in two World Cups, one European championship and numerous Six Nations, and enjoyed great success domestically, winning league and cup titles with Richmond Rugby Club for whom she was Club Captain.

Hazel Carter-Showell
Managing Director
Carter Corson

Hazel is a founding Director of CarterCorson, a North West based firm of business psychologists providing leadership development, assessment and executive coaching in the public and private sectors. With almost 20 years experience of executive recruitment, leadership development and management consultancy, Hazel is a graduate in business and psychology, Fellow of the CIPD with postgraduate qualifications in management learning and an expert in human behaviour at work. She has a track record of major transformation in high profile organisations, focusing on leadership, enhanced emotional intelligence, board behaviours and complex change. From a background in business turnaround and management development, Hazel brings a strong business focus to applied psychology. She is an experienced executive coach and the lead designer of CarterCorson’s leadership development programmes, for organisations such as AFG, Unilever, Barclays, HSBC, National Assembly for Wales, the Scottish Parliament, GMTV, PwC, Ernst & Young, BNFL, BAE Systems, Aviva, the NHS locally, regionally and nationally and was a visiting lecturer in leadership at Manchester University. Hazel also assesses the boards of technology companies seeking investment. Hazel has personally developed innovative new online tools and developed new leadership models for a number of high profile organisations – and enjoys supporting innovation in others. She currently provides leadership and management development for the House of Commons, House of Lords and Parliamentary ICT and is a sought after public speaker. Hazel has over 13 years’ experience as a coach working at senior and board level including Chief Executives and Chairs in private and public sector organisations, and she is currently coaching in NHS, not-for-profit and healthcare organisations, governmental bodies and the private sector. With a background in high-level search consultancy, Hazel has been trained to ask probing and indeed, challenging questions, and is known for her capacity as a ‘critical friend’. An expert in advanced listening skills, as well as body language and emotional intelligence, Hazel is skilled in identifying underlying issues and cutting through complexity. Her coachees value her honesty, clarity and support – and the that she will challenge their thinking. Hazel is passionate about making a difference and the importance of people and purpose over process – combining a corporate head and a social heart. She had a brain tumour in 2000 but it doesn’t slow her down! Drawing on her Business Psychology expertise, Hazel has a sound track record in bringing about changes in behaviour. She has designed, written and led major development programmes that have led to more confident and productive leaders and managers. As a thought leader in development, Hazel will bring her knowledge and experience of business and organisational strategy and leadership to guide coaches to build on their strengths and target areas for improvement.

Hayley Jarvis
Community Programme Manager
Mind

Hayley Jarvis – Head of Physical Activity, Mind Hayley Jarvis is the lead for Sport and Physical Activity at Mind the mental health charity, she has worked in the sector for over 15 years and has a MEd in Inclusion and Special Educational Needs. For the last three year’s Hayley has led programmes at both ends of the performance pathway including: Get Set to Go a three year Sport England and National Lottery funded programme which supported people with mental health problems to become active in their local communities through peer support. Mind's support to the Mental Health Charter for Sport and Recreation, Duty of Care for elite sport and work with sports ambassadors and supporters. Secured Mind’s two year partnership with the English Football League for the 18/19 and 19/20 football seasons. Through this work Mind have developed a range of resources and toolkits to embed learning across the sport and physical activity sector. Mind coordinates a bi-annual network of likeminded professionals delivering sport and physical activity programmes for people with mental health problems. In her spare time, Hayley is a mental health advocate, peer volunteer for Dudley Mind and lead trainer for Mental Health Awareness for Sport and Physical Activity training.

Stian Lavik
Director
Motitech UK Ltd

Stian Lavik is Director of International Markets in Motitech and Director of Motitech UK Ltd. He has been working building the growing Motitview-community of physically active seniors in care homes and adult day care centres in the Nordic countries and is now spreading the good word and concept in the UK.

Francesca West
Chief Executive
Protect

Francesca joined PCaW in May 2007 as an advisor and has extensive experience advising whistleblowers. Francesca leads the charity's work, including developing best practice whistleblowing arrangements and providing training and consultancy services at high level to UK and global organisations. Francesca was called to the Bar in 2005 and cross-qualified as a solicitor in 2011. She has an LLM in Human Rights and Public Law and a BA in Law and Politics. Francesca is also a ratified experienced employment representative at the Free Representation Unit. Prior to joining PCaW Francesca worked in Trinidad and Tobago for the Centre for Capital Punishment Studies carrying out capital case work on behalf of the London Panel of Solicitors.

Mr Chris Martin
Founder and Director
TeamKinetic

Chris has worked in both community and professional sport, starting life as a coach and fitness training in professional football with Sheffield Utd, before qualifying as a teacher and then moving onto community sports development. During his varied career, the golden thread that has linked his various life choices has been his passion to volunteer. How it has lead to many of his employment opportunities and how as a volunteer he was able to make real change happen at a local and national level. In building the company TeamKinetic, it has been his desire to create a platform for people to find communities, sharing a common cause, work in collaboration and utilise their skills. To provide the opportunity for communities to grow, be it online or in the physical world, enabling them to share resources, passion and success. TeamKinetic functions on three fundamental concepts; the generosity of individuals, the ability of people to work together when they have a shared goal and satisfaction in supporting a cause greater than yourself. These are concepts Chris and TeamKinetic continue to hold dear.

George Kaiafas
Managing Director
ZG Lighting UK Limited

Joseph Flagg
Senior Consultant
Upshot

Joe is a Senior Consultant for Upshot, a leading monitoring & evaluation tool originally developed by the Football Foundation, the UKs largest sports charity. Over the past 4 years he has helped NGBs, CSPs, local authorities, housing associations and sports & non sport charities to better manage, monitor and evidence their community and sports participation projects. His focus is on ensuring Upshot provides every organisation using the system with a clear picture of what’s going on, so everyone involved can analyse the bigger picture. Prior to Upshot Joe has worked within professional football academies and with an International Sport for Development NGO.

Tim Crabbe
CEO
Substance

Tim is a founder and Chief Executive of Substance and was formerly Professor of the Sociology of Sport and Popular Culture at Sheffield Hallam University. He has over twenty years’ experience of leading multi-disciplinary research teams investigating the impact of sport-based social policy interventions. Tim has led research and evaluation projects focused on the Home Office Positive Futures programme; chaired the consortium leading the DfE positive activity Information and Signposting Project; was a member of the DfE Quality Standards for Positive Activities Expert Support Group; led the NESTA and Cabinet Office backed Views project; led the research and development of Sportworks; and is a board member of the Inspiring Impact programme. With a succession of publications to his name, Tim is widely regarded as one of the leading authorities in relation to the research, development and analysis of sport and activity based policy initiatives.

Vanessa Greene
Impact and Evaluation Manager
Chance to Shine

Richard Joyce
Operations Manager
Chance To Shine

Mr Damian Stevenson
Insight and Partnerships Director
Swim England

Damian’s career has been spent generating insight to help organisations create happier, more satisfied customers in order to aid retention and recruitment strategies. Never have these skills been more appropriate than in the leisure industry. In the past 18 months his role has involved stimulating collaborative working between key partners in both leisure and health sectors. He has worked in the private and public sectors (Boots, e.ON, Nottm Trent University) and his latest incarnation finds him as the Insight and Partnerships Director at Swim England. His passion is to get more people active and enjoying the many benefits of water. He has been inspiring people with our insight-led Three Frontier Toolkit to help operators and local authorities become more customer-centric. This has helped grow aquatics’ profile across the leisure and health sectors. We are now looking to use this approach to improve the quality of life of those with or at risk of long term conditions, through innovative aquatic experiences. There has never been a better time to create powerful narratives encouraging people to swim regularly, especially given the financial pressures on the NHS and local government. We also have new evidence of the physical, mental and social wellbeing benefits that swimming regularly can provide.

Mrs Elaine McNish
Head of Health and Well-being
Swim England

Elaine Is Head of Health and Wellbeing at Swim England. Elaine has worked in the health, sport and fitness field for over 25 years. During this time she has worked in local authority leisure services, public health departments, and a national governing body of sport, the Sports Council for Wales, the Welsh Government and Macmillan Cancer Support. Some of the key pieces of work she has carried out include; writing the Welsh Government physical activity action plan, Creating an Active Wales; developing and managing the Welsh National Exercise Referral Scheme; providing advice and support to voluntary groups making lottery applications; and working on the development of the joint UK Chief Medical Officers guidelines on physical activity. She has also created and delivered a range of courses for teachers, sports, fitness and health professionals and written a book on behavioural change for sport and fitness professionals.

Jan Inge Ebbesvik
President for the Road Worlds for Seniors
Motitech

Jan Inge Ebbesvik is the president for the Road Worlds for Seniors at Motitech. The championship was firstly held in 2017, and it was an overwhelming success. We aim for the Road Worlds for Seniors to become the world’s largest sporting event, measured in number of participants.

Paul Oldfield
Director for Sport, Commonwealth Games and Gambling
Department of Digital Culture Media and Sport

Paul joined the civil service in 2000. In 2004 he joined DCMS to work on London's bid for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. He spent 8 years working on the Games - in a range of roles - including overseeing the Government’s lobbying and promotional efforts during the bid phase, and also working as Secretary to the Olympic Board. He served as Principal Private Secretary to two Secretaries of State - inlcuding at Games time. Paul has also worked in the Cabinet Office leading two major cross Whitehall policy reviews. On returning to DCMS Paul led the BBC Charter Review process, and subsequently was Head of Media Policy - overseeing a broad portfolio from press self-regulation, to the future of Channel 4, to fake news, to media mergers, and much more besides. In February he was promoted to be Director of Commonwealth Games, Sport and Gamling and started that role in June.

Mr Kerl Haslam
CEO
SportsAble

Having been in post as CEO at SportsAble, one of the UK’s most respected, multi-sports, disability facilities in the UK, for more than 7 years, there are few individuals with more hands-on experience when it comes to engaging people with a disability in social and physical activities. Before joining the charity, Kerl enjoyed a successful career in the service industry and spent many years as part of the senior team with Orange, including a role as Ambassadorof Visionary Planning, implementing many strategies which drove the mobile communications giant in to the position of success it enjoys today. He is an inspiring leader, a visionary, a futurologist and is passionate about creating opportunities for people with a disability to enjoy arewarding and fully integrated life.

John Eady
Chief Executive
Knight, Kavanagh & Page

KKP founder, John has extensive strategic and operational management, consultancy and research experience. He leads on Company major strategic planning assignments, specialist projects and client troubleshooting. A leading UK sports development, health and wellbeing strategy expert he is consistent in his advocacy for improved performance management, SROI and effective use of management information to inform service planning evaluation and investment. He has supported the review and improvement of processes for Glasgow Life Trafford, Salford, Tameside, Wolverhampton and Birmingham and brings particular expertise in the strategic and practical issues associated with concessionary pricing, CRM and related schemes.

Chris Pett
Head of Sector Programmes
Open Data Institute

Chris Pett is Head of Sector Programmes at the Open Data Institute and Programme Lead for the OpenActive Programme, which is stewarded by the ODI and Sport England. Launched in 2016, OpenActive is a multi-year initiative that aims to make it easy for people to find opportunities for physical activity, with open data published by activity organisers and shared by a host of established and new online services. In 2018, OpenActive has selected 10 technology startups to participate in a six month accelerator, developing innovative digital solutions to help people get active. The initiative has also supported a network of open data champions throughout the country. With over 90 participating organisations and more than a 100,000 activities per month published openly, OpenActive's collaborative community seeks to transform the way people find and book activities. Prior to joining the ODI, Chris was a product development and innovation consultant for organisations like Startup Bootcamp, General Assembly and the British Library.

Speaker Profiles