The Olympic Park was one of Europe’s largest ever redevelopment projects
It was a job you couldn’t turn down.
At the end of the Games I turned to three of my colleagues, Guy Lodge, Paul May and Jonathan Branson and we said we can’t leave it there. We’d learned so much from delivering and operating the venues for the Games, we saw an op- portunity to form a business providing strategic consulting, project manage- ment and assurance of major projects in the sport, leisure and events sector. This expertise is now available to
organisations and developers and our business is focused just on this sector.
Describe the experience of being responsible for the Olympic Park It was the most challenging and high pressured environment you could imag- ine. The spotlight was always on and the expectation from the public, media and the world of sport was huge. You couldn’t do anything in a half-baked way. As our CEO, Lord Deighton, would say to us, you have to do the best work of your lives, every day. But we knew what we had to do and it was a tremen- dous privilege and honour to play such a significant part in delivering the Olympic and Paralympic Games. To work along- side so many great people was truly
Issue 2 2013 © cybertrek 2013
I STOOD ON THE BRIDGE BESIDE THE AQUATICS CENTRE WATCHING THE CROWDS ON DAY FIVE – AND REALISED THAT WE’D CRACKED IT
inspiring. To be involved in something of international and national importance, you felt truly proud. I always wanted to compete for my country in a sport when I was a kid but didn’t have the talent to reach the top level but, as Seb Coe once put it, this was our way of pulling on the shirt to represent our country.
What was the most challenging aspect? The scale. My team was responsible for delivering over 120 competition venues, training venues, operational centres and support venues. We were the client for the new permanent venues delivered by the ODA and had direct delivery responsibility for venues such as beach volleyball in Horse Guards Parade, the Hockey venue in the Olympic Park and the equestrian venue in Greenwich Park. We had to structure and grow venue management and operations teams from
scratch. All of these tasks had their com- plexities and challenges. What we had to learn was where to spend our time most effectively and to trust our delivery and operational teams.
And the most rewarding? On day five of the Games I stood on the bridge beside the Aquatics Centre watch- ing people arriving. I felt by then that we’d cracked it. Our operations teams were looking relaxed and comfortable, confident in what they were doing. The volunteers, the Games makers, were hav- ing fun and just being themselves and the spectators were looking in awe at the venues and the beautifully land- scaped park, stopping to take photos every few steps. I knew then that nine years of hard work had been worth it. It was going to be a success. The public had embraced it and people were really enjoying the moment.
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