INTERVIEW
KAREN ROTHERY
Karen Maxwell talks to the chief executive of the British
Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) after her first year in
office and finds out how her previous business experience
outside sport has helped to structure the organisation
hen I walked into BUCS’ last year’s Beijing Olympic Games had a realistic experience in readiness for
W
headquarters, near London’s come through the university system. their competitive future,” says Rothery.
Blackfriars Road, to meet up Involving around 7,000 athletes from “We’re a relatively small organisation
with Karen Rothery, the of- 170 countries, competing in 15 sports, with 23 employees – most of whom are
fice was scattered with boxes of sports the annual event offers Team GBR’s based at our London office – so as you
kit as she and her staff set about prepar- 190-strong squad of students, officials can imagine, this involves a huge amount
ing for Team GBR’s attendance at the and staff an international event expe- of activity at headquarters – loads of
25th annual World University Games rience that would undoubtedly stand staff come into the office at unsociable
(WUG) in Belgrade, Serbia. many of them in good stead for their hours – it’s a massive undertaking.”
Rothery appeared to be in control participation at London 2012.
of the workload schedule as she ush- “Higher education (HE) is such an im- Business Acumen
ered me out of the chaos and into the portant proving ground for those who Rothery joined the newly-formed BUCS
relative quiet of her office, but it was go on to represent the country in inter- organisation as chief executive a cou-
obvious by the rapport she had with her national sports events,” Rothery ple of months before it was officially
team that she ran an open door policy explains. “And one of BUCS key objec- launched in June 2008 and has spent
and got stuck in with the rest of them tives is to give budding athletes the the past year developing a vision for HE
when a deadline loomed. most realistic experience possible.” sport and raising BUCS’ profile. She’s the
At the time of the interview, Rothery According to Rothery, members of first to admit that it has not been with-
and her team were non the wiser that Team GBR were selected by BUCS in out its challenges.
Team GBR would return from Belgrade conjunction with the national sports gov- “The launch of BUCS brought togeth-
with seven well-deserved medals. erning bodies (NGBs) and shared er two former representative bodies
accommodation with delegates from the – the British Universities Sports Asso-
Training Ground USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada ciation (BUSA) and University College
The World University Games is often and South Africa during the Games. “We Sport (UCS). Its objective: to offer a
the first opportunity for many athletes wave them off at the airport to make comprehensive, multi-sport competi-
to experience a multi-sport, Olympic- sure they’re sent off properly, we make tion structure and manage programme
atmosphere event and it’s already sure they take part in village life at the development, services and facilities for
proved to be an invaluable training event and give them access to physio- grassroots up to high-performance ath-
ground. No less than 58 per cent of ath- therapists, doctors, team managers and letes,” she explains. “However, it’s been
letes representing Team GB at video recording equipment to give them difficult establishing a new business
16 Read Sports Management online
sportsmanagement.co.uk/digital Issue 3 2009 © cybertrek 2009
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84