New Era for Major Events in the UK as Team Appointed to Deliver Tour De France Grand Départ 2027

Notes to editors

UK Sport 

UK Sport is the UK’s trusted high-performance experts, powering our greatest athletes, teams, sports and events to achieve positive success. Established in 1997, UK Sport has transformed the high-performance sporting system in the UK – through strategic leadership and investment of National Lottery and Government funds – winning more Olympic and Paralympic medals than ever before and is recognised as one of the top nations in the world for event hosting capabilities. UK Sport’s purpose is to lead high-performance sport to enable extraordinary moments that enrich lives and aims to work collaboratively with partners to deliver the greatest decade of extraordinary moments; reaching, inspiring and uniting the nation. 

More @ www.uksport.gov.uk 

*Biographies of Grand Depart GB 2027 Board Members

Chris Brindley – Acting Chair

After a successful career as an Executive Director in two different industries, Chris stepped down after four years as MD at Metro Bank to undertake a portfolio career as a Chair, NED, International Speaker, Executive Coach and Consultant in business and sport. Since stepping down Chris has had a fulfilling second career, which has seen him recognised with an MBE for services to sport and winner of the Institute of Directors, UK Non-Executive Director of the Year in 2017. Chris was the Chair of the Rugby League World Cup 2021 and is currently Chair of Northern Ireland Football League. He has also operated at Board level for the Rugby Football League, Manchester Football Association, Sporting House, GreaterSport and MCRactive.

Paul Williamson

Paul has worked on many major sports events, including multiple Rugby World Cups, European Football Championships, Football and Cricket World Cups, Commonwealth Games and World Cycling Championships. He was Director of Ticketing at the London 2012 Olympics and worked on the Paris 2024 Olympic Games project. He is a Non-Exec Director at British Cycling Events and was on the Board of the 2019 World Cycling Championships in Yorkshire. Paul is a keen cyclist, runner and tennis player.

Michelle Dite

Michelle has extensive experience in the major event industry working having worked with rights holders, sporting governing bodies and federations, venues, brands and charities. Since joining Fast Track in 1998, post studying at Loughborough University, Michelle worked on the agency side of sport for over a decade. Career highlights include the inception, feasibility and operational delivery of a number of major events including UKA major event series, Paralympic World Cup, Sport Presentation for London 2012, Invictus Games London 2014 and London 2017 World Athletics Championships.

For four years Michelle ran her own business (ThinkCanDo) providing event consultancy services to The Boat Race, Rugby League World Cup 2021, British Cycling, Major League Baseball London Series 2019, Invictus Games Foundation and the organising committees of Invictus Games Sydney 2018 and The Hague 2020. Michelle has been the Operations Director at Wimbledon (The All England Lawn Tennis Club) focusing on integrated planning, readiness and delivery of The Championships for the last five years.

Tove Okunniwa

Tove has a background in strategic marketing and content creation, with extensive experience in commercial and non-profit sectors and specialising in media, entertainment and sport. She is currently the Group Partnerships Director for the BBC, overseeing a portfolio of nearly 400 partnerships with organisations and institutions across the UK, and was formerly the chief executive of London Sport, a non-profit organisation using sport and physical activity for social change in London. Previously she led two sport and entertainment marketing agencies, WPP-owned MEC Access and Havas Sports & Entertainment and spent 10 years at the BBC in senior brand marketing roles.

Alongside her executive roles, she has served on boards for many years, including as vice-chair at Sport England and the same role at England Boxing, trustee at Catch 22, a social business which supports young people and the Media Trust.

Frank Slevin

Appointed as British Cycling's first Independent Chair in January 2018, Frank has held a number of board and senior executive positions across a range of industries, including banking, retail and sport. Most recently as Executive Chairman of House of Fraser, Chairman of Hamleys of London, and the inaugural Chair of Rugby League Commercial.
In addition to his recent UK-based roles, Frank has spent significant phases of his career working internationally having been based at various stages in the United States and Asia. He was based in Hong Kong from 1994 to 2010, latterly as Head of Global Banking for the Asia Pacific Region for HSBC, a role which he then held for North and South America, based out of New York.

He has a postgraduate diploma in Integrated Environmental Studies from the University of Southampton, an MSc in Exploration Geophysics from Imperial College and a Physics degree from the University of Manchester.

Biographies of UKEL Board Members

Alys Carlton – Chair

Alys is the Chair of the Football Association of Wales and a NED of Orchard Media and Events (a Wales-based strategic marketing agency). She is also an Executive Coach, running her own business consultancy providing a range of trusted adviser services to senior leaders globally. Prior to this, Alys spent almost 20 years as a corporate lawyer, firstly at Allen & Overy (now AO Shearman) in London and Milan, and then as a partner at Capital Law in Cardiff. Alys is also a Judge in the Mental Health Review Tribunal for Wales.

Steve Elworthy

Steve is currently the Chief Executive of Surrey County Cricket, having previously held roles as CEO of the highly successful 2019 Cricket World Cup and 2017 Women’s Cricket World Cup. He spent 12 years working with the England and Wales Cricket Board and the International Cricket Council (ICC) delivering six ICC global tournaments. He is an experienced non-executive director, holding roles across major sporting events including the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships in Glasgow and the 2019 Netball World Cup in Liverpool. Steve was also chair of the Netball Super League between 2019 and 2022. Steve entered the world of sports administration after retiring from a 14-year professional cricket career. Steve represented South Africa for a number of years from 1998 to 2003 and played in the Cricket World Cup in England in 1999.

Chris Brindley

See above.

Esther Britten – Observer

Esther is UK Sport's Deputy Director, and Head of Major Events and External Affairs, responsible for the UK's major sporting event hosting strategy, strategically programming and investing on behalf of the UK Government to ensure the UK continues to host the most significant and impactful major international sporting events. Esther is an experienced leader and Board member, working to strategically manage major events ensuring they deliver for the host city, rights holder and government partners. Esther is an observer on the UKEL Board, representing UK Sport as a B member.