The Big Interview: Vicky Williams

The Lawn Tennis Association’s (LTA) director of people, Vicky Williams, talks about the internal structural changes at the LTA, comparing her experiences from outside sport to now and increasing the number of women in leadership roles.

Start by telling us about your role in the LTA and how that fits in the overall structure of the organisation.

I’m people director of the LTA, I’ve been there for four years, joining after 20 successful years with Compass Group where I led HR for the UK. When I joined the LTA I was actually reporting into the legal director, who sat on the then Executive Board, which some found surprising given my position at Compass. However, I was happy as I thought it was a little less high profile role and will allow me to have a greater work life balance. Within nine weeks of starting that changed and I moved to Executive Board because there was a realisation that if we were going to transform the LTA it needed to start from the inside.

Who else is on that Executive Board?

Four years ago, it was me, the legal director, a semi-participation director, nobody in performance, somebody in commercial and somebody in marketing. I then assisted the chairman in recruiting the new CEO after Roger Draper which was when Michael Downy came on board. Now the structure is set up with a participation director (recruited from the RFU), a performance director (from UK Sport), a commercial director, we have a vacancy for a communications and marketing director, a major events director, a legal director, a finance director and myself.

Your job title is director of people, was that a deliberate step away from the phrase HR and if so, why?

I remember saying to Michael (Downey) before he officially started there is one thing I’d like you to say yes to – because you have a finite time to ask a new CEO to agree to something – I said I’m HR director but I feel like it should be updated.

I feel quite old in a young organisation and HR director felt old, it’s a job title of the age that I am and it felt a bit more happening to be a people director and more reflective of my passion of helping people. So Michael said yes, he was open to it and used to that title in Canada where he is from.

What I have learned that the governance and formality in a national governing body is a bit more structured than I was used to in my previous roles at Marks & Spencer’s or Compass. So this job title change then took quite a lot of discussions to get fully authorised by the remuneration committee. But really I don’t mind it either way, it’s what you do not what you’re called.

A previous boss used to tell me that job titles confine people so they think they can’t go outside of their roles, if we had no job titles then people would have the freedom to act and there is a bit of truth in that.

Certainly at the exec table you shouldn’t be defined by what you are, we should be sitting around the table talking about the business and being general managers; our functional expertise is when we go back to our teams and specific roles to talk about what we need to do and then you need credibility in your respective function.

Former LTA CEO Michael Downey

From food to mainstream sport – what are the differences between the sport industry and other sectors?

Governance and external profile. I remember when we were recruiting Michael there was an obsession with confidentiality and avoiding leaks. When I helped recruit senior positions at Compass nobody paid attention to what we did and it didn’t get into the press. So it’s that spotlight that makes a difference; we were perhaps braver in Compass because we had less of that direct spotlight. I think we’ve done a good job at the LTA to make sure we are governed properly but we aren’t constrained by it. It’s important to us and all our stakeholders to see that wok being recognised eternally and that is why we were all so pleased to be shortlisted for Governing Body of the Year at the BT Sport Industry Awards.

Another huge difference is that we don’t have to make a profit in the same way, it’s much more about overall value at the LTA. At Compass every year we needed to increase profits from the year before and if we weren’t on track then in a low margin business it was case of overheads slicing.

What have you brought with you from previous sector and what have you learned since working in sport?

The introduction of our values. I have experience of working in organisations when the majority of the workforce is paid less so the frontline means a lot. AT M&S, it’s not the CEO selling the dress in the Oxford Street store and it’s a similar thought we had to consider at the LTA. I don’t think we were looking at our colleague base and so introducing the values and the behaviours was key and I’m proud that a recent survey found that 92% of colleagues understand their role in delivering the strategy and 99% understand the values.

Four words are not enough; many organisations list four words and say they are a valued-based company but it’s the behaviours that sit underneath it which are key. At the LTA, I like to think we have started with the colleague base and worked up rather than start top down. We have an 85% engagement index with colleagues which is much better than my previous blue chip experience and something we are also very proud of.

Big recent recruitment with Scott Lloyd as the new CEO replacing Michael Downey. He’s from sport and from tennis specifically, was that always a foregone conclusion or could it have been someone from outside the sector?  

We briefed the head hunter that we wanted to see a shortlist of candidates that fall into three groups. Some from business with no sport or tennis background but a passion for coming in and being the CEO of the LTA, people from a sport background and people from a tennis background. The shortlist had candidates from those three areas but we are delighted that Scott is taking the role. It has made the introduction to him both internally and externally easier that he is from tennis but it was always about finding the right candidate to build on the journey that Michael and others before have led.

It will be an easier transition because of Scott’s background and I absolutely believe Scott will continue to build on our success and take us further forward. For other organisations I also believe that there will be candidates from sport or from business who could do the job of a CEO at a national governing body.

Scott Lloyd, LTA’s new chief executive who will take up the role in January 2018

You are a passionate advocate for women in leadership roles, are their enough female leaders in our sector and what are you doing to improve the situation?

It would be great if we could have appointed a female CEO but nobody would put the wrong person as CEO just because they are a woman. There were women on the shortlist but Scott was absolutely the right choice for us and he just happened to be a man. We do need to do more about women working in sport and it is something we are working hard on.

We have an internal leadership team within the LTA creating a succession plan towards the Executive Board. Three years ago there were fifteen of them with only one woman, now there are 25 people in that leadership team and eleven are women so things have moved on but there is still plenty to do.

Working with organisations like Women Ahead and partnering with business organisations to help our female employees see that there are opportunities that can be created, not just with the LTA but outside as well will help that. Further down the organisation I’m proud that we have accommodated 100% of requests for flexi-time from women returning from maternity leave. We’ve also introduced a lot of part-time roles, which is important in an organisation for us which has peaks and troughs of busy periods, and this has helped our female numbers. We are now an absolutely 50 / 50 split between men and women in the organisation, however, it’s not quite as good a ratio as it goes up the organisation but given the progress we have made in the improving the management team balance I am confident that we will continue to better this. We are not resting on our laurels, the women’s mentorship programme will help that, we are engaging external female role models to mentor our women to help them rise to the top.

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