As an avid cricket fan – who loves nothing more than getting along to international matches – becoming chief executive of Leicestershire County Cricket Club was the perfect match for Karen Rothery.
But that wasn’t the main reason the 58-year-old from Enderby took up her latest post.
A passionate advocate for women in senior management roles, she was chief executive for a decade at British Universities College Sports – the governing body for university sport in the United Kingdom – and the Surrey Sports Park (SSP) at The University of Surrey.
She made the move to the county’s cricket club at the end of April.
Her previous roles saw her work with elite sports organisations such as the Surrey Stars women’s cricket and Premiership rugby club Harlequins, as well as SSP’s own professional netball and basketball franchises, Surrey Storm and Surrey Scorchers.
But what might come as a surprise, is that those roles followed more than two decades in the clothing industry, before switching career paths and going back to university to complete a masters in sport and leisure management at Loughborough.
Following that she secured the job of commercial director at England Netball, which has its head office in Loughborough.
Keen scuba diver and runner Karen is a passionate supporter of women’s sports, and said her career change partly had its roots in Lord Coe being chosen to head London’s successful Olympic Games 2012 bid.
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Karen said: “I’d worked in the clothing industry for 24 years and, for most of that time, it had been in decline, with many manufacturers moving off-shore.
“I was working for a Nottingham firm which at the time was contracting significantly. I was asked by our holding company to downsize and I just thought, I can’t do this anymore.
“Sebastian Coe had just been appointed lead for our Olympic bid and, unlike everyone else, I just knew we’d get it.
“So, I gave up my job, went back to university for a year, and on the Monday immediately after handing in my research project on the Friday I started work for England Netball.”
Citing luck and timing for getting the role, at what was an exciting time for sports in the 海角视频, it was after two-and-a-half years with England Netball that she moved to BUCS and, later, SSP.
And it was during this spell that she experienced her biggest career highlight to date.
“When we won the bid, we became the test site for the Olympics,” said Karen.
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“A normal athletics event was normally at Bedford Stadium in front of an audience of 200 people but in May 2012 we were transplanted into the Olympic Stadium and the students played before 46,000 people.
“It was great for the students to get a chance of a lifetime to compete in the Olympic stadium before a medal was even won.
“That, on top of sitting in the chair that the Queen later sat in, and doing some live TV for Sky Sports, made it an incredible experience.” Karen, who completed a lifelong dream to complete a marathon in 2017 in Edinburgh, admitted it was her passion for women to be “highly represented” in business and sport.
It was that, coupled with the anarchic rebel in her, that made her apply for the chief executive role at the county cricket ground in Aylestone.
The former Lutterworth Upper School pupil said: “I’d seen the job pop up on my Linkedin timeline, and when I looked at the board and the website I saw that there were few women involved in cricket in Leicestershire, and the cricket landscape as a whole – there’s only one other female CEO in cricket, in Nottingham, Lisa Pursehouse.
"So, it appealed to my anarchic side – I believe in women being highly represented in business and sports, and cricket doesn’t have that.
“I’d also always thought my husband and I would eventually come back to live in Leicester as we’ve both lived here and love the area, so I decided to go for the job.”
Rothery’s predecessor, Wasim Khan, left the county club after four years to become the managing director of the Pakistan Cricket Board.
It’s certainly set to be an exciting first year for Karen at Leicestershire County Cricket Club.
The Grace Road ground will host three England women’s matches in 2019 – two of which will be against Australia in the Ashes and one against the West Indies.
But what’s her immediate plan of action?
She said: “There are two key things for me as CEO that we need to be concerned about – and they’re financial sustainability and viability.
“We are a non-Test match venue and a relatively small club based in an area surrounded by housing, so we’re not a Yorkshire or a Surrey, with highly successful players who play for England.
“We are very much a club at the heart of the community with financial challenges to be successful on the pitch and viable financially.
“But these things are symbiotic and therefore, I think, inextricably linked because success on the pitch drives financial performance.”
To achieve a firmer financial footing, Karen’s plan is to focus on the “simple things” like filling the venue more often by ensuring the grounds are well-used on non-match days, including more conferences and training for organisations in its club suite.
She said: “With more sporting success on the pitch we can be more financially viable.
“We’ve got a great academy, with lots of talented players coming through, a great coach with Paul Nixon.
“We have a really great, young team here and everyone is passionate in their own right. For me, the future looks bright for the cricket club.”