Martin McPhee Access Sport Chairman Expand Martin is currently a board member of a number of global organisations and an Operating Partner within a major global Private Equity company. Martin is a former Managing Partner at Accenture and Senior Vice President at Cisco, where he was responsible for running, building and transforming businesses of up to 15,000 people. Martin has 5 children ranging from 11 to 28, so recognises the importance that sports have in the development of his own children, he is a keen golfer and coaches his local U15 football team.Martin has been a trustee of Access Sport since 2016 and in 2019 took on the role of Chair of our Income Generation Committee. Martin McPhee, Linkedin
Christine Gibbons Expand Christine qualified as a pharmacist from Bath University and subsequently became Chief Pharmacist at a London Teaching Hospital. After completing an MBA from Cranfield Business School she worked at executive and national level for the NHS across the country. Her trustee experience started in 2002 in the hospice movement. Since her retirement her interests have been in widening participation in sport and leisure activities and she is also on the parkrun global, Bath University and Cycling UK boards. She is a keen triathlete and loves cycling for leisure, competition and as a means of travel. She is passionate about enabling everyone to have access to a wide range of sport wherever they may live.
David Ascott Expand David is a Chartered Accountant and MBA with over 30 years City experience in Private Equity and Corporate Finance. He was a Partner at Grant Thornton for almost 20 years where he was responsible for both leading over 50 Corporate deals and developing the talent and performance of the team. David also has extensive experience as a NED in Senior financial and governance roles in the Private Equity and Professional services environment. David is passionate about Sport and particularly the benefits it can bring to the lives of young people. He is the Treasurer Trustee for Access Sport and currently serves as a NED on the Board of Skateboard GB and a charity which helps refugees in Greece.
Helen Killingley Expand Helen works in the voluntary and community sector and has over twelve years' experience of frontline delivery and funding charity organisations. Helen has a commitment to and knowledge of the charitable sector and experience of funding and diversity, equity and inclusion (EDI).
John Baker Expand Retired Canadian solicitor and former Senior Executive and General Counsel of Canadian corporations. With extensive international experience in the UK, US and Canada, latterly in the aviation sector. Former Vice-Chair of Wesport, an Active Partnership. John also chairs the Bristol Steering Group of Access Sport. John Baker, Linkedin
Lorraine Bedwell Expand Lorraine is a Doctoral Researcher at Manchester Metropolitan University's Sports Policy Unit, specialising in organisational culture, performance and change. She also has an interest in the role of organisational culture in talent development and organisational belonging. Lorraine has broad commercial experience having spent 15 years helping to develop a recruitment business before returning to education. As a Senior Executive, she was responsible for business growth, recruitment and talent development. Recognising sports numerous benefits, she is passionate about sport for all and enabling children to realise their full potential.
Mandana Mehran Pour Expand Mandana is the Participation Manager for LTA where she leads on the strategic direction on tennis development in London focusing on unlocking relationships with senior executives within Local Authorities and political leaders to help them manage their tennis assets in parks more effectively. Previously Mandana has been working for London Sport where she gained notable experience of working with a range of National Governing Bodies of sport, local authorities and a wide range of community sport organisations. Mandana was born in Tehran, Iran where she played basketball professionally for 20 years. She comes from a sporty family and she played basketball since she was 9 before becoming a professional player representing her country. Mandana moved to the UK in 2007 after being offered a full scholarship to study for a Masters. Mandana holds a BA in Civil Engineering and MA in Sport Management. She loves cycling, swimming and jogging with her dog! …..’I was very fortunate to have sport in my life from a young age and my parents were great role models for me. Sport brought me happiness, confidence, friendship and taught me the biggest lessons of my life! I like to live in a world where every child has the opportunity to benefit from sport in some way!’
Matthew Dawson Expand Matthew is an IT Director and a father of two young children. In his spare time he is an endurance athlete and has supported Access Sport since 2013 when he first raised money completing his English Channel solo swim. Matthew truly believes that sport can change lives and that it should be a basic right for everyone from all backgrounds. The work Access Sport does to provide the opportunity to get disadvantaged children active and involved in sport, as well as working with local communities to build sustainable clubs is exactly what is needed to help combat many of the social problems of today.
Mike Diaper Expand Mike spent nearly 16 years at Sport England and was responsible for the creation and leadership of the children and young people, community sport and tackling inactivity policy portfolios, which pre-pandemic were driving up activity levels for children and adults. He commissioned and championed the Active Partnerships network which help people get active at a local level, repositioning them at the heart of grassroots sport and activity. Mike is a passionate advocate for Access Sport and wants to use his new Board position to help take the charity to a new level as it seeks to fulfil its Growth Strategy released in summer 2022. Mike Diaper, LinkedIn
Nicolas Janvier Expand Nicolas Janvier CFA has been portfolio manager for the Threadneedle American Smaller Companies Fund since 2015. Nicolas joined the company in 2006, spending eight years in the New York office of Columbia Management, where he worked as a portfolio manager in the Value Strategies team focusing on US mid and small cap companies. He relocated to London in 2014. In addition to his Portfolio responsibilities, Nicolas has served as a Trustee-Director of the Columbia Threadneedle Foundation since 2015.Nicolas was born in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti where he lived until the age of 11 when his family relocated to the United States. He holds a BA in Telecommunications-Operations from the University of Florida. He also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.Columbia Threadneedle has been Access Sport’s Principle Corporate Partner since 2013 and having played a key role in the partnership Nicolas became a Trustee in 2019.
Paul Jackson Expand Paul is the father of a daughter aged 12 and boy-girl twins aged nine. His son was born with a rare genetic condition, which means that he is a wheelchair user, non-verbal, JEJ fed and has complex epilepsy. Paul has a PhD in High Energy Physics and has used the skills he developed exploring why the universe has more matter than antimatter to help clients in sectors as diverse as Sport, Energy, Credit Risk, and Litigation Finance. Most of Paul's career has been working in professional sports analytics, helping clubs with player recruitment, and he also helped to develop part of the Premier League's Elite Player Performance Plan. Paul grew up in Lewisham and still regularly visits the area so he has firsthand experience of the challenges faced by the communities Access Sport works with. Combined with his experiences as a father of a severely disabled son, he appreciates that the simple things that the majority take for granted, like Access to the benefits of participation in sports, can have barriers that simply should not exist. He's thrilled to help Access Sport remove the causes of those barriers.
Sarah Mortiboys Expand Sarah is Head of Programme Development at Premiership Rugby and is a former Sport for Development & Education Strategic Lead for UK Coaching and Managing Director of Dallaglio RugbyWorks. She is a specialist in organisational transformation & strategy development across sport for development and education and is passionate about creating positive change for young people through sport. Sarah Mortiboys, LinkedIn