2023

Gemma is the Category Director for Beverages at Danone UK & Ireland. She leads Danone’s portfolio of beverage brands in the UK, which includes evian, volvic and Harrogate. She joined Danone Waters UK&I in 2017 to head up the evian marketing team. She began her marketing career in Danone’s Dairy Division in the UK working on the Activia and Actimel brands. She later moved to Canada leading the Naya brand relaunch for Danone Naya Waters, then returned to UK to lead communications on Activia. In 2010 she moved to Johnson and Johnson, where as Global Senior Marketing Manager she led strategy, communications and innovation for the Cough Cold franchise. She returned to Danone in 2017 and took up her current position in 2021.

Jana joined the newly established Sports for Nature team at IUCN in mid-2023. As Engagement Officer, she is responsible for building and managing relations with and between the wider sports and nature conservation communities and helping develop sports’ capacity to champion nature and contribute to its protection and restoration.

Jana came into the role with a rich sustainability-and-sports expertise and capacity building and training experience having worked on sustainability, public affairs and international relations in the Olympic movement (Czech Olympic Committee and the European Olympic Committees EU Office) for the last decade.

In her career, Jana has had the privilege to lead or co-manage several exiting projects and initiatives, including the “As Sustainable As Possible” project, which helped three National Olympic Committees develop and implement sustainability strategies, and the Czech Olympic Committee’s Master of Public Administration programme on Sport Diplomacy. She is also a member of the European Olympic Committees Sustainability and Active Society Commission.

With over 20 years’ experience as a sustainability consultant, mainly within the sports and major events sector, and a parallel career developing purpose, leadership, culture and values in business, Kate knows what actually works when it comes to developing and implementing sustainability strategies, and how to embed them within an organisation.

Kate has worked in sport sustainability for the Royal Yachting Association, The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and for the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals). She has been working with London Marathon Events since 2013 – at first as an external Sustainability Advisor to the RideLondon cycling event and from 2018 helping LME to develop and implement its sustainability strategy. Kate has recently joined LME permanently as Head of Sustainability, working across LME’s portfolio of running, cycling and swimming events to help deliver on an ambitious sustainability strategy. She also plays a key role in the MSO (Mass Participation Sports Organisers) group – driving collaboration on environmental sustainability throughout the mass participation industry.

Alongside her work with sport, Kate has supported over 100 companies across a wide range of sectors with B Corp certification. B Corps are companies that demonstrate the highest levels of positive social and environmental impact.

And yes – she has run the London Marathon – slowly!

For nearly fifteen years Kelli has been helping to inspire, support and champion sustainability and climate action in and through golf.  As Executive Director of the GEO Foundation for Sustainable Golf, she manages organisation operations and the effective development and delivery of programmes and services to meet global stakeholder needs and the overall strategic vision for golf courses, tournaments, players and associations.  Prior to joining the sport and sustainability movement, Kelli was at Microsoft’s Seattle headquarters in product management and strategic relations.

In 2006 he published The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football – the definitive history of the game – and in 2019 brought it up to date with a successor, The Age of Football: The Global Game in The Twenty First Century. In between he published books on Brazilian football, the history of the Olympics, and in 2015 won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award for The Game of Our Lives: The Making and Meaning of English Football. He has been described by Prof.Dominic Sandbrook of Oxford University, in the Sunday Times, as “not merely the best football historian writing today, he is possibly the best there has ever been.”

He currently teaches for the Football Business Academy in Geneva, is a regular visiting Professor at Pitzer College, Los Angeles, and is an Honorary Fellow of the International Centre for the Culture and History of Sport at De Monfort University, Leicester.

His journalism has appeared in the Guardian, the Observer, the Financial Times, the New York Times, Prospect, New Statesman, the Times Literary Supplement and many other publications. He has won the sports story of the year at the Foreign Press Association Media Awards in London three times, In 2009, for the BBC World Service documentary Mathare United. which showcased the power of football for social development in the slums of urban Kenya ; in 2015 for “The Prison Where Murderers who Play for Manchester United” published in The Guardian, which reported on the role of a DIY English Premier League and Prison football association in turning Luzira, Uganda’s notorious high security jail, into one of Africa’s most humane and progressive prisons; and in 2018 for “Viktor Orban’s Reckless Football Obsession”, published in The Guardian, which featured the first interview with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban with a foreign newspaper for more than a decade. It was shortlisted for the European Media Awards in 2019.

In 2020 he published Playing against the Clock: Global Sport and The Climate Crisis and has been working and campaigning on these issues ever since.

Radzi is one of Britain’s most talented and experienced television presenters having started out his presenting career on the BBC’s landmark children’s show, Blue Peter. He has since gone on to be a regular face on our screens, presenting shows for the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky. January 2020 saw Radzi take on his latest challenge, as a contestant on series 13 of ITV’s Dancing on Ice. In addition, this year saw the launch of My World, a ground-breaking global news programme for young audiences, explaining the stories behind the headlines and combatting fake news, which Radzi presents. He was particularly thrilled to work on the show alongside executive producer Angelina Jolie.

His passion for Sport has led Radzi to present several major events throughout the years, from the London Marathon to the Boat Race, World Indoor Athletics Championships and the Snooker, Radzi is a regular face of sports broadcasting. Radzi is also a stalwart of the UK Wrestling scene working as a presenter for the WWE’s flagship show, NXT UK. It made history as the first ever UK-specific television series on the WWE Network starting in October of 2018 and he has worked as a vital part of the team ever since. His passion and knowledge for athletics was evident when he presented the BBC’s coverage of the World Athletics Championships 2019 in Qatar. And in January 2019 he joined the Sky Sports team, presenting the first NBA game of the year on Sky Sports, live from the O2 Arena and anchoring the weekly, live NBA highlights show every Sunday night. In addition, acting as a pitch-side reporter at the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup and hosting the 2019 World’s Ultimate Strongman competition, Giants Live on Channel 5.

 

Responsible for leading and influencing sustainable development, operations and events with a wide-ranging social, environmental and commercial programme that engages all parts of the Club – and CFG – and its work, its
fans, communities and partners, measuring and reporting the impacts transparently and consistently.

Pete has worked in the sport and leisure field since the mid 1970s with key roles in leisure management, sports development, health education, strategic regeneration and in sustainable development.

Working in the UK and overseas, Pete has developed his career to help build strong and successful organisational structures and responsible change and development.

Born and educated in Manchester; a swimmer and water polo player ‘by trade’, Pete attended his first Manchester City match in 1963. An alumni of Hulme’s Birley High School and (masters) of the University of Leicester.

A published author – a Mancunian through and through – Pete is confident that the spirit of industry, invention, innovation and change is alive and well – creating wide ranging benefits and opportunities with security in learning, health and wellbeing above all – so that we prosper – together.