SailGP has announced a major reorganization of the racing league corporation structure.
Sir Russell Coutts, co-founder of SailGP with Larry Ellison in 2018, will continue to oversee all business units as SailGP CEO.
While Andy Thompson will take on a wider role as Managing Director of the SailGP League business unit, focussing on the growth and commercialization of SailGP.
Until now Thompson has been the Chief Commercial Officer of SailGP, having previously worked as CFO of the America’s Cup. Newly recruited Melissa Lawton – who joined in May 2022 from Meta – will lead the SailGP Production unit
SailGP will be organized into three key business units . . .
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- SailGP League covering Commercial, Marketing, Events, Technology and Strategy
- SailGP Productions covering Broadcast and Content
- SailGP Technologies which is the boat building, design and applied technologies division of the company.
As part of the focus on growth and fan engagement, SailGP has also bolstered its talent across departments,:
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- Leah Davis and Nicola Sands join the Marketing department as Global Marketing Director and Global Event Marketing Manager respectively.
Davis and Sands will focus on building, leading and executing the global marketing strategy with overall responsibility for brand and consumer marketing, media effectiveness, event marketing and fan engagement working closely with SailGP’s local teams in each market.
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- Tom Gracey joins the business as Global Head of Broadcast Media Partnerships.
In this role Gracey will own and execute SailGP’s global media rights strategy, building and developing relationships with broadcasters and online media publication
The league has also made some key promotions internally:
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- Daisy Vollans moves into the role of Director of Digital
- Sacha Kemp is promoted to Communications Director
- Fiona Morgan takes on the position of Chief Purpose Officer
- Julie Boyd will step into the role of Chief Financial Officer
- Jon Massie is promoted to Chief People Officer to support the wider workforce growth.
The commercial team will be led by three regional commercial directors:
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- Charlie Dewhurst overseeing the EMEA region along with global commercial strategy
- Ben Johnson continuing to lead the Americas
- Karl Budge expands his core remit of the New Zealand team to the wider APAC region.
This major structure reorganisation is taking place as the SailGP racing league approaches the end of a record-breaking third season and builds towards an expanded Season 4, with more teams and more events.
Meanwhile SailGP Season 3 continues later this month with the KPMG Australia Sail Grand Prix | Sydney on 18 and 19 February, before the sold-out ITM New Zealand Grand Prix in Christchurch on 18 and 19 March and the Season 3 Grand Final in San Francisco on 6 and 7 May.
Related Post:
SailGP Season 4 expands to 14 events for 2023-24
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