BOARD MEMBERS

Sir John Ritblat has been a permanent feature of the British Alpine sporting landscape, with this year's Delancey British National Alpine Championships being the 40th year that Sir John has been involved with the sponsorship of the sport.

Sir John Ritblat, Chairman of Delancey’s Advisory Board, previously President of the old British Ski Federation and now President of British Ski and Snowboard comments: “I am most honoured to continue the very long association with British skiing and am delighted with the success of the British Ski & Snowboard reconstitution, which I am sure will be an exciting new chapter, and with which I am proud to be associated.

Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, KG, GCVO, CD, ADC(P), has been the Royal Patron of GB Snowsport since 2017.

An avid skier, he has attended the GB Alpine Championships in Tignes, France and presented medals and awards.

Rory was, Chief Executive of Coutts, the wealth management arm of RBS Group. This business had operations in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, the Middle East and Switzerland. Prior to that he was the Chairman and Chief Executive of UBS Asia Pacific, responsible for the Investment Bank, Wealth management and Asset management in that region. He was also Chairman of Global Investment Banking.

Rory was instrumental in helping BSS (now GB Snowsport) in its first funding venture in early 2010 and has now offered his time, energy and passion for snowsports to help the organisation improve the programmes and support it offers to British snowsport athletes.

Vicky joined GB Snowsport as Chief Executive Officer in April 2018.

A former Group Captain in the Royal Air Force, Vicky’s military career in the RAF featured highly successful operational, strategic and leadership roles which saw her awarded an MBE in 2004, followed by an OBE in 2014 for services to the military.

She played a crucial executive role in the organisation and breakout success of the inaugural Invictus Games in 2014, going on to become CEO of the 2016 Invictus Games in Orlando, USA.

Vicky also sits on the Board of the Global Mental Health Summit, is an Armed Forces Lawn Tennis Association Councillor, a strategic advisor to the UK Invictus Games Delegation, and is a founding custodian of Rugby Centurions.

Hunt joins the organisation from the Premier League where he was Head of Elite Performance, bringing with him over 13 years of experience in performance sport. Prior to this, Hunt was Sport Director at Team Sky and had huge success on the world and Olympic stage as a coach at British Cycling.

Hunt will lead the performance strategy for GB Snowsport across all disciplines; Alpine, Cross Country, Freestyle Skiing, Park & Pipe, Ski & Snowboard Cross, Ski Jumping, Speed Skiing and Telemark. He will provide leadership in all aspects of the athlete support programmes that are put in place.

He will also ensure that funds raised through the recently announced industry funding scheme, the British Snowsports Fund, as well funding received from corporate sponsorship and UK Sport and the National Lottery are used to drive forward the organisation's ambitious plans.  

Having just finished a 10-year term as Chair of Great Britain Hockey, Richard Leman brings top-class experience from the sporting arena to GBS as well as experience of building businesses.

Richard set up his first business in 1993 and has since founded and chaired several businesses, mainly in the Human Resource and Recruitment sectors.  In addition he has set up a Charity at East Grinstead Sports Club where he has raised over £4m to help develop the multi-sport community hub.  Richard also played hockey at two Olympic games, winning a Bronze medal at Los Angeles in 1984 and a Gold medal at Seoul in 1988. He is now a keen skier who has passed the passion onto his children.

"I hope that my experience with Great Britain Hockey as both a player and a Board member will bring an added depth of elite sport experience to the BSS [now GB Snowsport]  Board” commented Richard. “I am looking forward to working with BSS as an Independent Director and trying to make a different to British snowsports at this exciting time.”

Ex-professional skier and investment professional Anna Lees-Jones has already built up a portfolio of non-executive roles after a twenty year career in asset management with firms like Dresdner, M&G and Investec.  Anna was previously a member of the British Children’s Ski Team as well as being BASI qualified. She still loves skiing, particularly fresh powder in Flaine with her three children.

Anna said on her appointment: “I am delighted to join the Board of BSS [now GB Snowsport] and hope I can bring the experience from my professional career as a Non-Exec together with my passion for snowsports. I used to ski full time on the FIS circuit before starting my financial career. I am still hugely passionate about snowsports and I hope I can play a part in driving BSS forward towards its vision.”

Paula Cardwell is a chartered accountant, who gained her qualification with Coopers and Lybrand/PwC and subsequently has worked mainly in the alcoholic beverage sector over the past 25 years within companies such as Allied Domecq plc, William Grants and now at Stock Spirits plc. Her main focus is mergers and acquisitions as well as long term strategy for the business but she has also had experience as their Finance Director in Poland and Group Financial Controller.

Paula is passionate about winter sports from the time she was a chalet girl in Meribel before she started her accountancy career where she snowboarded, but she now down-hill skis and she likes to take on the odd easy ski tour with a guide. She also took a sabbatical from her day job a few years ago to teach herself cross-country skiing where she completed the Tjejvasan ski race in Sweden.

A former Freestyle skier, Iain has been involved in developing Freestyle at all levels from Home Nation to International since 1984. Starting as first Chair of the Freestyle Committee of the English Ski Council, he served on each British governing body’s Freestyle Committees and chaired the British Selection Panel before taking on the Chair of the current committee in 2014.  He has represented Britain on the FIS Freestyle Committee and its technical committees since 1992.  He is an International Technical Delegate, having completed assignments at many Europa Cup and World Cup events, two World Championships and two Junior Worlds, and chairs the FIS Freestyle TD Advisory Group.

Iain is also a Rear Commodore of the Civil Service Sailing Association, and races a Fireball dinghy (strictly recreationally) on Southampton Water outside the skiing season.  Despite all this he still finds some time to continue his career as a UK civil servant employed by the Office for National Statistics, where he has worked in IT since 1975.

Colin has been involved in the development and organisation of British Snowboarding for many years. He was invited to join the committee of the British Snowboard Association (BSA) in 2003, looking to help fund riders trying to qualify for the Turin 2006 Winter Olympic Games. In 2005, he assisted with the UK Sport modernisation programme with the merging of BSA into SnowsportGB and helped set up the British Snowboard Executive to represent snowboarding within the national governing body. Colin was part of the working group to establish the British Ski and Snowboard Constitution when the new organisation was founded in 2010, and in 2011 he became Snowboard Director on the Board of BSS (now GB Snowsport).

Colin regularly attends events in support of British riders and has been to three Olympic Winter Games in Turin, Vancouver and most recently Sochi. He has helped out at every Brits Championships since 2003 and worked at all London Freeze Big Air competitions since the inaugural event in 2008. In 2015, he entered as a Masters competitor in the Brits Half Pipe event and claimed the prestigious wooden spoon for his 4th place in this fiercely contested category.

Athletes can usually find Colin officiating the starts at the top of the mountain with his well-known ‘Clipboard of Power’. 

Trafford Wilson the Chief Executive of Snowsport Scotland joined the GB Snowsports Board in September 2019.

Prior to relocating to Scotland in 2018, Trafford was the Chief Executive at Capital Hockey. His career in the New Zealand sport sector spans 15 years, including senior roles within Sport New Zealand and regional sporting organisations/ Trusts.

Trafford is a current Director of the Snowsport Scotland Board (ex-officio) and has served Directorships with Softball New Zealand and Athletics Wellington respectively.

As a sports enthusiast/ nut, Trafford has been active in most sports and currently mixes his winter months up, either on his snowboard or on a rugby pitch. Outside of sport, Trafford is a proud father of two boys and avid traveller.

Trafford looks forward to working with the wider GB Snowsports Board and supporting the excellent work performed by staff to ensure that our best athletes perform on the world stage.

Melinda Nicci was appointed to the GB Snowsport board as a Non-Executive Director in February.

Melinda is founder and CEO of Baby2Body the award winning, wellness company for women. Melinda is a Sports and Exercise Psychologist, author and innovator, passionate about sports and physical activity and optimising both health and performance through technology. Melinda is a strategic thinker and proven leader having spent many years as an independent consultant for numerous blue chip companies, and has held multiple board roles in both for profit, and not for profit organisations.

Melinda is on the board to advise in the development of its vision, strategy and policies, in collaboration with the CEO and other Board members. The role will involve providing oversight and independent views on the implementation of the next phase of the sport's Strategy to the 2022 Winter Games.

Tim Fawke has had a life time in snowsports with 5 years growing up in Norway from the age of 5, when he started his racing career. He went on to compete at Children, Junior and Senior level for the British Alpine Ski Team. Then in 1998 went to university to study Sport Science and Management. After university, Tim spent 7 years coaching the English Alpine Team and instructing in a number of resorts.  

Tim took up the role of Head of Development in 2008 and then in 2009 became CEO at Snowsport England.