Board and Executive Leadership Team

His report, Made to Move, published in December 2017, set out a 15-step plan to transform how people get around in the city region. The plan has evolved into a £1.5 billion plan to create a world-class cycling and walking network with the first 100 miles of high-quality routes now being created.

In May 2021, Chris was appointed in an expanded role as Greater Manchester’s first ever Transport Commissioner, tasked with accelerating the delivery of the Bee Network – a fully integrated, city region-wide transport system.

He is one of the UK’s most prominent cycling and walking advocates and has been policy adviser to British Cycling since 2012.  

Chris launched his own range of bikes, BOARDMAN Bikes, in 2007 and is company chairman. He also worked as head of research and development for the Great Britain Cycling Team from 2004 to 2012, including at the 2008 Beijing Games where the Olympic team won eight gold medals. 

He was appointed Chair of Sport England in July 2021.

He has moderated and delivered keynotes at events ranging from the NHS Medical Directors’ Conference to the European Retail Real Estate Conference.

From February 2014 to September 2018 Chris was CEO of Sported, the London 2012 legacy charity, serving a UK-wide membership of 3000+ grassroots groups using sport and activity to deliver social outcomes and improve the lives of young people.

He has worked extensively within the high-performance sports system, not least as a lead facilitator on UK Sport’s elite coach programme. As a volunteer, he was deputy chair of International Inspiration, London 2012’s ground-breaking international development programme, and served as a member of the Commission on the Future of Women’s Sport, Comic Relief’s UK grants committee and the board of the Youth Sport Trust.

Chris has chaired the judging of the BT Sport Industry Awards for a number of years. He joined the Sport England Board on 9 September, 2016 and is currently serving his second three-year term.

In this role his business perspective encompasses sport globally from occasional activity through to elite performance, and across all age groups.

Initially trained as a management accountant, Andy's whole career has been in consumer goods, living and working across different regions of England as well as briefly overseas.

He chairs the audit, risk and governance committee and is senior independent director.

After 25 years playing and volunteering in grassroots rugby, he is now most active in the gym and as a parent volunteer, occasionally indulging his competitive instincts by trying to beat his own personal best at the local park run. Andy joined the Sport England Board on 9 September 2016 and is currently serving his second three-year term.

She was four times world champion, broke two world records and competed at four consecutive Olympic Games.

Since her retirement from competitive swimming, Karen has become a popular motivational and after dinner speaker and commentates for BBC 5 Live, BBC TV and Channel 4. In 2013, she founded The Karen Pickering SWIM Foundation, to run alongside her swim schools, offering bursaries to those who might otherwise be unable to afford swimming lessons.

Passionate about giving elite athletes a voice, she was chair of the British Athletes Commission and formerly sat on the executive boards of the English Institute of Sport and the BOA-Athlete Commission. Karen joined the Sport England Board on 28 October 2016 and is currently serving her second three-year term.

Since then, he’s held a variety of NHS general management posts including more than 11 years as chief executive of acute hospital trusts, three years as the chief executive of a healthcare commissioning organisation and three years as the chief executive of the NHS in the West Midlands.

From 2012 to 2020, Ian was chief executive of Health Education England (HEE), the largest education and training organisation in the world, responsible for the education, training and development of the current and future NHS workforce.

In addition to his Board role for us, Ian is a professor of global healthcare workforce and strategy at Keele University, is the UK‘s lead for Health in the Overseas Territories, and the NHS’ global workforce ambassador. He has personal interests in both pre-hospital care and sports medicine – an area in which he holds an MSc.

In 2003 Ian was awarded the OBE for services to the NHS and in 2010 he was made an honorary fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners. Ian has also been recognised with honorary degrees from five universities.

Ian is also a qualified level 3 swimming coach, a keen snow skier and enjoys sailing and hill walking. He joined the Sport England Board on 28 October 2016 and is currently serving his second three-year term.

She's worked in press and policy roles in the UK Civil Service at the Departments for Education and Employment, the Foreign and Commonwealth Offices and was seconded to both the European Commission and Parliament.

Rashmi has also worked in the charity sector, supporting the UK’s largest research funder, the Wellcome Trust, and was a board member of the Activity Alliance – where she helped develop their charter setting out changes to improve disabled people’s participation in sport. She's also the founder of Step Change Studios, which support disabled people to be active through dance.

Her work has focused on supporting organisations and initiatives that promote social inclusion and quality of life. Rashmi has a PhD in psychiatry from the University of Cambridge and joined the board on 23 July, 2018.

Alongside this, she oversees delivery of major UK campaigns, events and moments such as City of Culture and the BBC’s centenary.

Tove has a background in strategic marketing and content creation, with extensive experience in commercial and non-profit sectors and a specialism in sport.

She was formerly the chief executive of London Sport, a non-profit organisation using sport and physical activity for social change in London.

Before that, she led two successful sport and entertainment marketing agencies, WPP-owned MEC Access and Havas Sports & Entertainment.

Prior to this, Tove spent 10 years at the BBC in senior brand marketing roles. Her career started in the arts at the London Symphony Orchestra and the South Bank Centre.

Prior to this, he oversaw the strategy, insights, HR, integrity and public policy teams as ECB’s Chief Strategy Officer.

Before joining ECB, David held a number of senior roles at Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, including director of policy and chief advisor to its CEO.  He was also seconded into Government in 2009 as a director of the Digital Britain Report, which examined the transformational nature of digital technologies and the policy responses needed as a result.

A qualified lawyer who specialised in competition and media law before joining Ofcom, David is a keen sports fan who enjoys cricket and golf as well as following West Ham United.

He joined the Sport England Board on 28 October, 2019, and is serving his first three-year term.

After graduating from King’s College London in mathematics and business management, he went on to complete a Masters in sea-use law, economics and policy making at the London School of Economics. He began his professional career working in the oil and gas industry, before moving into the telecommunications industry just as the dot.com era was taking off. Azeem has held senior commercial, finance, business development and technology leadership roles to date and has extensive international experience where he has utilised his multi-lingual skills.

A committed sportsman, Azeem plays cricket, football, squash and tennis and is a die-hard Liverpool FC supporter. He currently holds a non-executive director role as chairman of Active Essex and passionately leads the charge against physical inactivity to improve the quality of life for all people, of all ages, in Essex.

Married with three children, in 2016 Azeem was named in the UK’s Top 100 Most Influential BAME business leaders. He was appointed to our Board on 24 September, 2019, and is serving his first term of three years.

That followed an impressive 147-medal haul at Rio 2016 as his team finished second in the medal table, up from third and 120 medals at London 2012.

Tim has also been at the forefront of the work that has increased the profile and interest of the Paralympic movement, driving the commercial and business growth of the BPA as a charity that challenges perceptions of disability in society.

Before his seven years with the BPA, Tim held the roles of director of policy and communications and chief operating officer at UK Sport.

Prior to that, he had a decade’s worth of experience working in senior corporate communications roles – all of which builds an impressive CV that saw him awarded an OBE in 2017.

At DCMS, he held a number of roles, including Head of Arts, Principal Private Secretary to the Secretary of State, Head of Sport and, most recently, leading the government's work to support Birmingham's successful bid to host the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

Nick was also a board member of Yorkshire 2019 Ltd, the organising committee for the 2019 UCI Road World Championships, having also been involved in the bid.

He has represented Sport England as a Board Director of both the Football Foundation and UK Coaching.

Phil’s team manages long term investments of several hundred millions in various sporting bodies, and giving the subsequent advice to achieve results. The ultimate aims are to grow the number of people regularly engaged in sport, while maximising international and domestic sporting success and helping the sport sector to become more productive, sustainable and responsible.

Within these aims, Phil leads the organisation’s work in talent development and performance, club and workforce development, volunteering and coaching, equality and diversity and improved governance. 

Phil joined Sport England in 2008 from The Football Association, where his professional career started after Euro ‘96 as the General Secretary of the County FA in Manchester.

His football career took him through various roles in the game before becoming The FA’s Head of Policy and Public Affairs, responsible for football industry policy in relation to Government in both the UK and international bodies.

She also worked at HM Treasury, holding positions including Head of News and Head of Strategic Communications.

She's previously worked in sport as Head of Communications at Premiership Rugby club Wasps and has also worked in media and public affairs roles at the BBC and BBC Worldwide.

Ali started her career, after graduating with a degree in politics, as a journalist at the Evening Echo newspaper in Ireland. She is a passionate women's rugby fan and campaigner, and runs the award-winning website Scrumqueens.com. She is also Director of Women's Rugby at her club Teddington and is a member of the RFU’s Rugby Growth Committee.

She joined Sport England in 2022 from the Trussell Trust, where she was Director of Participation. Jeanette's also held a variety of senior roles for the Greater London Authority, including Head of Community Engagement and Assistant Director for Communities and Social Policy.

She's also a former Director of the African Diaspora Dance Association (ADDA) and strategic consultant for clients including Arts Council England, Creative Lives and BBC Arts. 

She joined Sport England in 2022 from the University of Warwick, where she was Director of Sport & Active Communities and has a strong career history working in communities and sport.

Previous roles include Director of Sport and Culture at Wakefield Council and Coventry City Council, where she headed up their sports team.

She chairs the British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) Physical Activity & Health Board and represents the Higher and Further Education sectors on ukactive’s Membership Council.