Sussex Cricket
Chief Executive Officer
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Lead the next chapter of England’s oldest first-class county cricket club.
Sussex Cricket is seeking an outstanding Chief Executive Officer to lead the club through its next phase of growth and establish Sussex as the best-run challenger club in county cricket.
This is a significant leadership opportunity at a defining point in the club’s history. Sussex has come through a demanding period, with substantial work already undertaken to strengthen its financial position, reduce costs and improve financial controls. The foundations are being rebuilt. The next Chief Executive Officer will be appointed not simply to continue that stabilisation, but to take the organisation forward.
The ambition is clear: to build a club that is consistently competitive in Division One, commercially imaginative, financially disciplined and deeply connected to the people and businesses of Sussex.
The breadth of the opportunity is considerable. The Chief Executive Officer will lead across professional cricket, the player pathway, commercial growth, The County Ground, membership, the Sussex Cricket Foundation and the club’s wider community impact. Working closely with the Chair and a refreshed Board, you will have the opportunity to shape the strategy, culture and commercial future of one of the most historic clubs in English cricket.
The impact you’ll make
- Set the direction for Sussex Cricket, developing and delivering a clear long-term strategy that gives staff, players, members, partners and the wider county something to believe in and get behind.
- Build a financially sustainable organisation, taking personal ownership of the numbers, delivering against realistic budgets and ensuring strong financial discipline across the club.
- Drive the commercial evolution of Sussex, bringing fresh thinking to sponsorship, partnerships, membership, ticketing, hospitality, retail, events and the way the club packages and takes its commercial rights to market.
- Create the conditions for cricketing success, supporting and constructively challenging the Director of Cricket to maximise a fixed playing budget and identify the marginal gains that can give Sussex a competitive advantage.
- Modernise how Sussex connects with its audience, improving digital, marketing, fan data, CRM and live-streaming capability and creating a more compelling experience for members and supporters.
- Unlock the potential of The County Ground, identifying intelligent, commercially viable ways to make greater year-round use of an accessible and characterful venue in the heart of Hove.
- Build an outstanding senior leadership team and culture, creating genuine collective ownership of the club’s strategy and an environment where talented people can perform, develop and thrive.
- Strengthen Sussex Cricket’s place within its community, working with the Sussex Cricket Foundation to connect grassroots participation, the pathway, women’s and girls’ cricket and inclusion with the club’s wider strategy.
- Represent Sussex with credibility and influence, developing trusted relationships with the ECB, members, sponsors, businesses, media, community partners and stakeholders across the county and the wider game.
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The opportunity
Sussex is not looking to compete by simply trying to out-spend the largest Test-hosting counties.
The opportunity is to be smarter with what the club has: to build an organisation capable of consistently competing at the highest level while developing players, finding new commercial opportunities and creating an experience that keeps members, supporters and businesses connected to Sussex Cricket.
There is meaningful scope to innovate. The commercial team has a strong established inventory to build from, while opportunities exist across new partner categories, digital and fan data, membership propositions, live streaming and greater year-round utilisation of The County Ground.
You will also join a club with a Chair and Board committed to backing its Chief Executive Officer. The intention is explicitly to make a long-term appointment, with the Chief Executive given the support, challenge and authority to run the organisation and build something that lasts.
What success looks like
In your first year, success will mean establishing clear momentum: delivering the budget or better, rebuilding a constructive and trusted relationship with the ECB, retaining and growing commercial partnerships, putting a clear strategy and roadmap in place, and creating a senior leadership team with genuine collective ownership of that strategy.
It will also mean beginning to modernise the fundamentals of the club: strengthening digital and marketing capability, developing a better understanding of Sussex’s fan base and making The County Ground an even better place to watch cricket.
The leader we’re looking for
This is a Chief Executive Officer appointment, and we are looking for someone ready to carry the breadth and accountability that comes with it.
You may already be operating at Chief Executive level, or this could represent a genuine step up in scale and scope. What matters is that you have experience running a business rather than simply leading a function: owning a profit and loss account, leading senior people, making difficult decisions and being personally accountable for organisational performance.
You will bring:
- Strong financial command – genuine personal financial literacy, with experience building realistic budgets, managing performance against them and identifying issues early.
- Commercial imagination – a track record of finding growth where others may see mature assets, whether through new partnerships, products, propositions or routes to market.
- Whole-organisation leadership – experience building and leading senior teams and creating clarity, accountability and collective ownership around strategy.
- Credibility within elite sport – an understanding of high-performance environments and the judgement to support and appropriately challenge sporting leadership.
- P&L ownership and operational breadth – ideally including exposure to areas such as venues, ticketing, hospitality, events or visitor-facing operations.
- Exceptional stakeholder skills – able to move comfortably between governing bodies, regulators, sponsors, members, players, staff, local businesses, media and community partners.
- Digital and data fluency – you do not need to be a technologist, but you should understand what a modern marketing, CRM and fan-data operation looks like.
- Presence and commitment – someone who wants to be visible and accessible across the club and the county, equally comfortable in the boardroom, dressing room, members’ enclosure and local business community.
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Cricket experience itself is not essential. The club expects its next Chief Executive Officer to bring significant experience from professional sport, although an exceptional leader from the leisure, entertainment, media or visitor-attraction sectors with strong roots in Sussex may also be considered.
What is essential is a genuine love of cricket and a desire to build a long-term future within the game. Sussex is looking for someone who wants to lead this club and become part of its community, not simply someone looking for their next executive title.
If you are excited by the opportunity to lead an historic sporting organisation, build on strengthening foundations and create a club that is ambitious, smart with its resources and built to last, we would be delighted to hear from you.
Click Apply to begin your application.
The Executives in Sport Group are retained on behalf of Sussex Cricket to appoint their next Chief Executive Officer. All direct applications and CVs will be forwarded to The Executives in Sport Group.
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Please note that due to the volume of applications received, we are unable to provide specific feedback to unsuccessful applicants.
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