Huge congratulations to the 2021 nominees and winners!
2021 WINNERSSee you next year!
The Sports Business Awards recognise and reward achievement by the teams behind the scenes that facilitate sporting excellence and endeavours. We salute and champion their resilience, adaptability and resourcefulness, in particular, that shown over this last year.
Why the Sports Business Awards?
Celebrate with your team
Being an award-winner is a powerful motivator to inspire you and your colleagues to keep up the great work!
Enhance your reputation
Appending an independently judged third-party badge of excellence is a sure-fire shortcut to emphasising your merit to colleagues, clients, bosses & stakeholders.
Generate positive headlines
Spread the good news - everyone loves a success story and winning an award is a great publicity hook for social and traditional media efforts
Aspire to Better Practice
Winner or not - seeing what others do for their products is an irreplacable source of tried & tested award-worthy ideas!
Our 2021 Judges
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Nigel Walker OBE
Performance Director, Welsh Rugby Union
Nigel Walker OBE
Performance Director, Welsh Rugby UnionA former international athlete and rugby player who has transferred the determination, focus and hard work required to succeed in the sporting arena to life after to become a successful leader and motivator in his post competitive career. Experienced in building teams to work collaboratively to achieve clearly defined objectives in the most effective and efficient manner possible. Well networked and regarded across a range of industries and highly successful in identifying and implementing change programmes to increase performance and impact. Nigel was awarded the OBE for services to elite sport in June 2019.
Served on the UK Sport board for four years (2006-2010) chairing the Major Events Panel and serving on the Audit Committee. He is currently a Commonwealth Games England board member (Since 2015).
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Karen Pickering MBE
Commonwealth & World Champion Swimmer
Karen Pickering MBE
Commonwealth & World Champion SwimmerDuring a 20 year international swimming career Karen won 35 major championship medals and 38 National titles despite breaking her back in a car accident in 1996. She was 4 times World champion, broke 2 World Records and competed at 4 consecutive Olympic Games.Karen retired from competitive swimming in 2005 & as well as well as being the Swimming Development Officer at Ardingly College she now commentates for the BBC and is a non-Exec Director for Sport England.
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Tove Okunniwa
Former Chief Executive - Sport London
Tove Okunniwa
Former Chief Executive - Sport LondonTove is CEO of London Sport, a non-profit organisation dedicated to making London the most active city in the world, supported by Sport England and the Mayor of London. She has a background in strategic marketing and content creation, with extensive experience in both commercial and non-profit sectors. Previously she led two successful sport and entertainment marketing agencies – WPP owned MEC Access and Havas Sports & Entertainment – advising clients such as Barclays, Coca-Cola, Visa, Danone, Lloyds Bank, Marriott, Specsavers, Nintendo and Morrisons among many others. Prior to this Tove spent 10 years at the BBC in senior brand marketing roles, including Head of Marketing at BBC Sport where she led a successful repositioning of the brand.
She is Deputy Chairwoman of England Boxing and a Trustee of Catch 22, a leading social business.
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Nick Pink
Chief Executive, England Hockey
Nick Pink
Chief Executive, England HockeyNick joined England Hockey as Chief Executive in November 2019, having held the same position with England Golf for the previous four years. Nick has a background in sports administration having worked for the International Cricket Council, UK Sport and the Youth Sport Trust.
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Ben Calveley
Managing Director, British & Irish Lions
Ben Calveley
Managing Director, British & Irish LionsBen Calveley has been MD of Lions Rugby since November 2018 after serving 7 months as acting CEO of Six Nations Rugby and Lions Rugby on secondment from the RFU.
Prior to joining Lions Rugby, Calveley worked as Head of Strategy and Corporate Affairs for the RFU from June 2011 working on corporate strategy, policy, public affairs, international relations, project and risk management, fundraising and events.
He also worked for UK Sport from 2007 where he led a team advising all Olympic and Paralympic sports on how to increase their influence within the International Federations to which they affiliate. Calveley joined UK Sport from PMP, the sports consultancy, where he led the Football division and managed complex domestic and international sport projects involving multi-disciplinary teams including advising on how to develop grass root and elite sporting systems in a number of international markets.
Ben began professional life working in Merger and Acquisitions with Arthur Andersen and holds an MBA. He lives in Buckinghamshire with his wife and three young children.
Our 2021 Judges
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Adrian Christy
Former Chief Executive, Badminton England
Adrian Christy
Former Chief Executive, Badminton EnglandAdrian has been Chief Executive of Badminton England since 2006 and is leading the organisation through a vision for badminton to be one of the nation’s most popular sports and to consistently win World, Olympic and Paralympic medals.
Adrian is driving a journey of modernisation and self-sustainability at Badminton England, transforming the business through technology, customer acquisition, fan engagement and organisational efficiency. He is a bold, recognised and innovative leader with proven achievement; someone who makes things happen and leads by example.
Under Adrian’s leadership, Badminton England has secured the greatest level of commercial investment in the history of the organisation, seen the Yonex All England Open Championships be included among the three badminton ‘Majors’ on the World Tour, demonstrated great vision and creativity through the launch of the first professional badminton league in the UK.
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Charlie Wylie
Managing Partner, EMEA, MKTG Sports + Entertainment
Charlie Wylie
Managing Partner, EMEA, MKTG Sports + EntertainmentCharlie is Managing Partner of Sport & Entertainment at MKTG, an industry leading lifestyle marketing agency.
Charlie is a partnership and brand engagement expert with years of experience in building, managing and delivering integrated partnership and sponsorship solutions for clients. Recently he has focused on creating large scale global partnerships for FMCG and B2B brands, helping to deliver game-changing business value for brands through sport.
Outside of work Charlie is a huge sport fan and has become an expert in up-selling his former sporting glories. When not juggling work and family life he’s often to be found on a boat, or a bike or doing some form of adventure challenge.
