UK Athletics Announces New Partner

04 Nov 2015 | tshego

Share on

UK Athletics (UKA) has announced a new five year partnership with Grant Thornton UK LLP as they prepare to host multiple World Championships over the coming years.

With major global sporting events heading to the UK, including the London 2017 IAAF and IPC World Athletic Championships, the partnership is looking to make the UKA one of the world’s leading sport organisations.

London 2017 will be the first time that two World Championships have been held in the same city in the same year. Taking place in July and August over 3,300 athletes from over 200 countries will compete at the Olympic Stadium.

For London 2017, Grant Thornton will assist UKA in the creation of the Organising Committee by offering guidance, planning and personnel to enable the world leading standard of delivery demanded by hosting an event of this scale.

UKA chief executive Niels de Vos welcomed their commitment to help realise UKA’s vision and said: “This partnership with Grant Thornton is about building dynamic teams who can create events and environments that encourage peak performance throughout the organisation.

“Grant Thornton will provide quality individuals and resources that will provide additional support and critical thinking to the governing body above and beyond our usual means.”

“If British Athletics is going to be the best we can be we need to look outside our sport and get ideas from sources where perhaps other governing bodies wouldn’t look. This is what a business would do; they look at a whole series of things and compare themselves with competitors. Good businesses will then go way outside their sector in an effort to improve and innovate, which is what we are doing by collaborating with Grant Thornton.”

Kylie Roberts, director of leadership development at Grant Thornton, said: “We believe that partnering with UK Athletics will help us on our journey to becoming a high-performance coaching organisation.

“We have a vision to create a shared enterprise way of working and to do that our leaders need to be exceptional coaches and enablers. We are partnering with UKA to work with us on coaching excellence and likewise we work with them to create high performing teams and a high performing organisation that can excel in a volatile, uncertain, ambiguous and complex world.”