New Board Of Directors

With a number of directors ending their term on the Board of Directors along with the Chair Tom Snape requesting to stand down after 5 years in the role, a major recruitment process was carried out with the help of an external executive recruitment group we are pleased to announce a new Chair and 5 further directors have officially now joined the Board.

The new Chair of Dorset Cricket is Claire Whitaker CBE. Claire is a highly experienced CEO and non-executive Director and has over 25 years experience at Board level, within Executive and Non-Executive positions. Currently, Claire is the CEO for Southampton Forward who are responsible for placing culture at the heart of Southampton’s future. She also has an active interest in Dorset cricket, with her daughter still playing for the County Women.

Alongside Claire, we are pleased to be appointing Dan Buckley, Patricia Price, Andrea Metcalf, Jon Yeung and Sally Wernick are joining the Board of Directors. 

Dan joins as Director for Marketing and brings a wealth of sports marketing experience from his time at both Oxford United then AFC Bournemouth. He is currently the Founder and Managing Director at Ocean View Marketing.

Members of the Dorset Cricket League clubs will have met Patricia already, when she spoke at our recent EDI Engagement evening at Bryanston School. Patricia will join as our Director for Equality, Diversity & Inclusion and will bring her background in this are which includes delivering training organisations wishing to openly demonstrate commitment to their beliefs, values and principles.

Whilst Andrea is without portfolio, her rounded skills in a number of areas we are strategically working in will help us shape and deliver our work moving forward. A background in education, human resources and strategic planning provide a rounded set of skills to help influence our ongoing work.

As an experienced non-executive, adviser and investor, Jon will bring his financial acumen to the board and will take the role of Finance Director. He was director at PricewaterhouseCoopers for over 16 years and has a passion in seeing not-for-profit groups be highly successful in what they do.

The fifth new member of the Board is Sally, who will take the seat of Director for Safeguarding. Already working in cricket as an active Safeguarding Panel member for the ECB, Sally will work closer with our County Safeguarding Officer, Vanessa May, to ensure we take every step to make cricket the safest sport in the county.

Existing members of the board Leanne Fitzmaurice (Director for HR), Angie Pittaway (Director for Disability cricket), Sean Walbridge (Director for Performance cricket) and Katie Azulay (Director for Women & Girls cricket) remain in position.

To further the level of expertise available to our work, they will be joined by Rhiannon Harris and Claire Tabor. Both will join as Board Observers and add their professional experience to our future plans.

The new Board members were identified and have been selected based on their professional backgrounds. The skills they will bring to the Board are key to us driving our game forwards in the grassroots and representative streams.

The next 4 years will see us looking to maintain this growth, demonstrate how cricket can benefit all and play our part in making cricket the most inclusive sport in the country."

With the original Inspiring Generations period ending during 2024, the new Board of Directors will be focussed on supporting the operational staff in developing our strategic plan for cricket in the county in the next 4 year period.

In the picture, the new Board members are joined by Andy Fairbairn of the ECB at the official onboarding event on Wednesday night.