Paul Deighton, LOCOG
Paul is the Chief Executive Officer of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG). In this capacity, Paul is in charge of the day-to-day operations of LOCOG. He has a wide range of responsibilities which include establishing strong working relationships with stakeholders, the International Olympic Committee and the Olympic Delivery Authority; overseeing recruitment and the annual budget; and providing leadership in the development of a variety of Olympic and Paralympic programmes, from sponsorship and marketing to ticketing and the Torch Relay.
Prior to joining London 2012, Paul was the Chief Operating Officer of Goldman Sachs in Europe, and a member of its European Management Committee. At Goldman Sachs he worked in a variety of management and client-facing roles for over 22 years, and was appointed a partner of the firm in 1996.
Before joining Goldman Sachs in 1983, Paul worked for both Security Pacific National Bank and Bank of America. He received a BA in economics from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1978. Paul lives in central London with his wife Alison.
Tim Hollingsworth, UK Sport
Tim Hollingsworth joined UK Sport as Director of Policy & Communications in March 2005. In addition to his role on the Senior Management team, he is responsible for leading the organization’s policy development, media and stakeholder communications, international relations activity and commercial partnerships and sponsorship.
He was previously a Director of communications consultancy HBL Media, providing strategic advice on reputation management and proactive media relations to clients such as Kingfisher, Barclays, Nokia and the National Lottery Commission.
Prior to that from 1999-2001 he was Head of Corporate Media Relations and Internal Communications at Granada plc, then Europe’s largest independent media company, where he worked on the acquisition of United News & Media and the consolidation of ITV, as well as leading the rebranding of the media business following demerger.
From 1993-1999 he was Head of Media Relations at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), managing the external profile of the business lobby group during the build up to and aftermath of the 1997 general election.
Tim is a graduate of Exeter University, from where he holds a Masters Degree in Drama. He now lives with his family in Bath.
Andy Hunt, British Olympic Association
Andy is Chief Executive of the British Olympic Association, the National Olympic Committee for Great Britain & Northern Ireland. Andy joined the BOA in November 2008, is a Director of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) and has recently been appointed Chef De Mission to lead Team GB at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
Andy started his career within sales and marketing across a number of industries and companies including ICI Paints, before going on to build a successful CRM consulting business in the 1990’s, which he subsequently sold in 2000. In 2002, Andy joined the board of business process outsourcing specialist Vertex and went on to lead the financial services businesses following the acquisition and turnaround of Marlborough Stirling Plc. Vertex was sold to Oak Hill Capital in 2007 and Andy was most recently the Managing Director of Reliance, a £240m Security Services Specialist.
Andy is passionate about sport and is a keen sailor and a RYA Yachtmaster.
Jane Jones, British Paralympic Association
Jane began her career in advertising and it was there that she first became involved with the BPA, leading to her attending the Atlanta Paralympic Games as a voluntary Press Officer. After moving into sports marketing and a stint living overseas, she returned to the BPA in 2007 and became Director of Communications after the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games.
Phil Lane, OBE, British Paralympic Association
Phil is Chief Executive Officer at the British Paralympic Association. Formerly a headteacher and rugby coach with Saracens FC, Phil joined ParalympicsGB in August 2001. Since then he has acted as Chef de Mission at the 2002 Salt Lake City Paralympic Winter Games, the Athens 2004 Paralympic Games, the Turin 2006 Paralympic Winter Games and the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games.
Phil was awarded an OBE for Services to Disability Sport in the 2009 New Years Honours list.
John Steele, UK Sport
John Steele was appointed Chief Executive of UK Sport in July 2005. He was formerly the Executive Director at Northampton Saints Rugby Football Club, where he was also successful as both a player and coach.
John Steele joined Northampton Saints in 1988, played for the club as fly-half for seven years and still holds the record for the most points scored in one season with 425. An England squad member, he played for England ‘A’ against New Zealand, South Africa and Australia. While in the army, he captained the Combined Services team.
In 1999 he took over as Director of Rugby at Northampton from Ian McGeechan and coached the side to become European Champions in 2000, as well as Tetley Bitter Cup finalists.
He moved from coaching in 2001, becoming Executive Director and overseeing the playing and operational sides of the business. In that time, the club has floated on the stock market and emerged as a profitable business, while Franklin Gardens has been redeveloped to become one of the best club grounds in the country.
He is also a former Sandhurst-trained Royal Artillery Captain, and a qualified Chartered Surveyor,
Chris Townsend, LOCOG
Chris is Commercial Director for LOCOG responsible for all forms of revenue generation and procurement including domestic sponsorship, ticket marketing, merchandising and agreeing with the IOC LOCOG’s share of worldwide broadcast rights and the share of the worldwide TOP sponsorship programme.
Prior to London 2012, Chris joined Transport for London (TfL) in 2003 as Group Marketing Director. He was responsible for a number of high profile award winning advertising campaigns including the 'Sarah Rivers' road safety campaign and launched the Oyster card, which now has 6m active users. He re-negotiated the London Underground advertising contract with Viacom worth £1.2bn.
Prior to TfL Chris joined Telewest in 1999 as Director of Interactive TV and E-Commerce where he was responsible for the planning, implementation and marketing of all content on the Telewest Digital TV and Blue Yonder platforms. This included completing 120 interactive TV and Broadband commercial contracts.
Prior to Telewest Chris was Customer Marketing Director at BSkyB from 1992 to 1995, where he was responsible for growing the customer base from 250k to 3.5m customers and launched the Sky payTV channels including Sky Sports & Sky Movies. Chris was promoted to Marketing Director BSkyB Digital from 1995-1998 where he developed and implemented the Sky digital marketing strategy, the Sky electronic Programme Guide and Sky Interactive. The development of Sky Interactive included substantial commercial deals in excess of £500m.
Before joining BSkyB in 1992 Chris had worked at DMB&B, a worldwide top 5 Advertising Agency and the BBC in Senior Director Roles.