The Sport and Recreation Alliance launched its new Alliance Directors Club on Tuesday evening with an event at the Royal Army and Navy Club in London.
The Alliance Directors Club is a new hub for aspiring and existing directors in sport to hone their skills, build their networks and progress in their career.
The club aims to be a vibrant community – a central place where members can explore what it means to be a director in sport and recreation and also a place where ideas can be shared and new partnerships formed.
The club is the latest Alliance initiative on improving governance in sport, a key tenant of the Alliance's work which started in 2011 by the inception of the Voluntary Code of Good Governance, to which more than 70 sports bodies are signed up.
The launch event was attended by a wide variety of high-calibre individuals from very experienced directors, to those using the event as their first stepping stone on their journey to a directorship.
Attendees heard a keynote speech from Genevieve Shore, Chief Information and Product Officer with Pearson International, non-executive Director with Scottish Television, and a member of the Rugby Football Union All Schools Board Campaign Team.
In her opening remarks at the event, Sallie Barker, Interim Chief Executive of the Sport and Recreation Alliance, expressed her belief that the Alliance Directors Club will provide a valuable service to the sector.
“For sport and recreation to meet the challenges it currently faces we need leaders with a new and broader range of skills. We must distance ourselves from the perception – fair or otherwise – of an old boys’ network.
“We at the Alliance want the Alliance Directors Club to stand for quality, for openness and for diversity. We want to create a meritocracy at the top of sport which welcomes people for what they know, not who they know or how long they have known them – this is how the future of sport is best served.”
The Alliance Directors Club’s second event is taking place on 10 June. To find out more about the Alliance Directors Club contact Mikkel Larsen.
