Paul Barber joined the board of Brighton & Hove Albion FC as Chief Executive in June 2012.

Previously, Paul became the first British football executive to lead a team in to Major League Soccer when Vancouver Whitecaps FC entered the league in March 2011. He joined the Vancouver Whitecaps from Tottenham Hotspur FC, where he was the Club’s Executive Director for 5 years.

In addition to 25 years working in professional football, Paul has held senior positions in major international companies such as Barclays Bank PLC, where he was a member of the retail board, Ogilvy & Mather, the US-based advertising and communications group, where he was Chief Executive for Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Abbey National PLC, now part of Santander, the Spanish banking group.

Richard was appointed Chief Executive of the League Managers Association in January 2008. Richard is a prominent character in the world of sport and business with a strong track record of devising and achieving strategic visions, implementing long-term business plans and growing sports organisations nationally and internationally across different cultures.

He joined the Professional Cricketers’ Association in 1996 & became Chief Executive in 2001 to 2007, developing the profile and business of the organisation to becoming a major player in world of cricket. Richard was also a founding Director of the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations.

Richard has been a Trustee of the Team England Player Partnership since 2002 which provides contractual, financial, commercial representation to all England Cricket players. He also represents the LMA as a member of the Professional Players’ Federation, the umbrella body for all players’ associations.

Richard was also appointed Chairman of The board of The Caribbean Premier Cricket League (CPL) in November 2013. Within two years the CPL has been confirmed as the number one sports event in the Caribbean, second only to the IPL in International T20 Cricket. CPL has an economic impact in the Caribbean of US167m.

Sanjay is the Chair of Kick It Out, football’s equality and inclusion charity. In this role, he is a frequent public commentator and recognised thought leader on issues related to discrimination and equality.

Sanjay is also a Board member at the Lawn Tennis Association and Greater Sport (the Local Active Partnership for Greater Manchester) and is part of the Government-sponsored Parker review into the ethnic diversity of UK boards (focusing on FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 companies). Sanjay was also a member of the Premier League’s Equality Standard Independent Panel for four years.

Sanjay enjoyed a 30 year business career in law, technology and compliance including 12 years as a Partner at international consultancy business EY where he was also the partner sponsor for award winning race strategies. Since 2019, Sanjay has been pursuing a portfolio career. Sanjay is a Board Member at the law firm Travers Smith and the Serious Fraud Office as well as a number of charities. Sanjay is also Chair of the Satellite Applications Catapult which acts as a hub for innovation in the UK space technology industry.

Neil Doncaster is the Group Chief Executive of the Scottish Professional Football League (“SPFL”). He has been involved in professional football in a series of senior roles for over 25 years. He joined Norwich City FC in 1997 as Company Secretary and, four years later at the age of 31, became their Chief Executive. In his twelve years at City, the Club re-built its reputation with supporters, with season ticket numbers trebling over the period to 20,000 and the Club receiving a number of awards for community, business development and innovation.

While with Norwich, Neil was elected to the Board of the English Football League and subsequently to that of the English Football Association. Neil joined the Scottish Premier League in 2009 and, following the merger of the Scottish Premier League and Scottish Football League in 2013, Neil became the first Chief Executive of the SPFL. Neil is the only person ever to have sat on the Boards of both The FA and The Scottish FA.

The SPFL recently announced new long-term and record-breaking live broadcast rights contracts with Sky Sports, Infront and the BBC, resulting in record turnover and club payments last season. In summer 2022, the senior women’s leagues were brought into the SPFL’s governance structure, with the creation of the Scottish Women’s Premier League.

In October, Neil was elected to the Board of the European Leagues.

Tom has worked within the professional game for over a decade. He started at Portsmouth FC as an intern, working in every department before settling in the marketing department in a full-time role.

During his time at the club he experienced two relegations, two administrations and an FA Cup Final. The highlight of his time at the club was receiving the Family Club of the Year award in 2012. This achievement marked a stark change from the clubs failure to achieve the Football League’s family Excellence standard just a year earlier.

From Portsmouth, Tom moved to Cardiff and in the first year, he oversaw increased matchday hospitality revenue by over 200% from the previous season as well as leading us to the 2013 Family Club of the year Award.

He then moved to Brighton & Hove Albion as Head of Marketing where he was responsible for our sales strategies for all club commercial channels including ticketing, commercial, retail and non-matchday events. Tom worked at the club during their promotion to the Premier League and was responsible for overseeing their sales and marketing strategy on their multi-million pound five year hospitality renewal project.

In 2015, he received the Rising Star Award at the Stadium Business Awards in Barcelona and in 2016 he was part of the inaugural Sports Industry Next Gen programme.

Last year, Tom was promoted to the post of Chief Executive Officer at Bristol Rovers Football Club becoming one of the youngest CEO’s in professional football. He lead the club to promotion back to League One with a 7-0 victory on the final day elevating Rovers into the top three by a single goal, whilst also driving standards across all parts of the business.

Yvonne became Women in Football CEO in January 2022. Equality is a huge passion for Yvonne, from grassroots participation to the boardroom, and with over 20 years in the sports industry, she has experience across the board, in sport, health and business.

She began her career with Manchester-based charity GreaterSport, where she later became CEO and led the charity to unprecedented success, helping to put Greater Manchester firmly on the map as innovators, driving impact and changing lives through sport and physical activity. During her tenure she was awarded The Charity Times Awards – Rising CEO star, the Northwest Institute of Directors, Director of the Year for Public and Third Sector and was added to the Northern Power Women’s top 50 Power List, alongside the charity securing multiple awards.

In 2018 Yvonne became Managing Director for Project 92, overseeing the sport and education portfolio for the Class of 92, which included a game-changing higher education institution in Greater Manchester, UA92.

In late 2020 Yvonne established StryveUK, a sports consultancy which has worked with professional sports franchises, clubs, national governing bodies and charities as well as supporting individuals through executive coaching and mentoring. In addition to this, Yvonne is actively involved with several organisations in a Non-Executive Director capacity, and is Chair of Trustees for Foundation 92.

Women in Football

Alistair Mackintosh joined Fulham Football Club as Chief Executive in the summer of 2008.  He was previously Chief Executive at Manchester City Football Club and over a ten year period saw the Club travel from the Second Division back to the Premier League and from its Maine Road home to the City of Manchester Stadium.

Having trained as a Chartered Accountant with PWC, Alistair spent a number of years working for Sony before entering the football business.  He has also held Board positions at a radio station, a museum, a leisure centre group and a charity.

Andrew is the Chief Executive of Heart of Midlothian FC and won the Football Business Awards Scottish CEO of the year in 2022. A lawyer by profession, prior to working at Hearts, Andrew also spent 6 years at the Scottish FA ultimately becoming the organisation’s Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Chief Executive.

As a member of the leadership team at St George’s Park, Paul is responsible for strategy and team operations across all England Men’s National Teams from Seniors down to Under 15s.

As Equality Adviser to the board of the Premier League, he wrote the No Room for Racism Action Plan and chaired the independent panel which assesses clubs on progress against the Premier League Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Standard.

Outside football, Paul was previously a partner at PwC, the global professional services firm, where he served on the management boards of the firms in UK and Africa. He also held several non-executive board roles including at Metropolitan Police and Guy’s & St Thomas NHS Trust. He was awarded the OBE in the 2020 New Year’s Honours List for services to diversity and inclusion in business.

Wrexham AFC CEO Fleur Robinson is an accomplished commercial leader with a huge passion for putting football at the heart of the community and making a positive difference to people’s lives.

Fleur joined Wrexham in June 2021 as the Club’s new high-profile co-chairmen, Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds, sought an experienced footballing person to help deliver an ambitious mission statement, growing the Football Club in tandem with their targets for success on the pitch. Previously, Fleur spent more than 25 years at Burton Albion – holding the position of Commercial Director as the Brewers’ rose up through the Football League and spent two years playing in the EFL Championship.

A major highlight of Fleur’s career was becoming a founding Trustee of the award winning Burton Albion Community Trust, a thriving community involvement programme which inspires, engages and educates local people and welcomes 8000 participants a week.   She is also proud that the club was awarded for three consecutive years, the Family Excellence Award which recognises “the extraordinary quality of the family experience”. During her time with Burton, she also led the huge transformation of the commercial side of the business. This included the launch of the club’s corporate hospitality and conference facilities, initiatives to increase match day attendance and sponsorship opportunities to bring increased funds into the club.

Fleur is currently elected to the 120-member FA Council and, having been involved in football since the early 1990s, has seen a great deal of diversification over the years.  Fleur is an Ambassador for BTEC and supports education particularly the transition for further education through her own development ‘Inspiring Your Future’ workshops. In December 2021 Fleur received the Football Black List award for Administration for the second time.

Chief Commercial Officer at Crystal Palace Football Club. An experienced Sports, Entertainment and Venue Executive empowering high performance results. With over 20 years of demonstrated history of delivering against steep revenue targets and driving growth for some of the most respected rights holders in the world of Tennis, Sports Entertainment and Football.