Scottish Hockey strengthens board with four new appointments

Scottish Hockey has appointed four new board members who bring a wealth of experience, and will help set the strategic direction over “Build” phase of Scottish Hockey’s Reset, Build, Excel vision for the sport. The role of the board is to set and maintain vision, strategy and values whilst ensuring compliance with the law and financial oversight.

All four new members have been appointed to the board following ratification at Scottish Hockey’s AGM. Balvinder Sagoo, Jane Harvey, Scott McCubbin, Kareena Cuthbert have been appointed as board members for a four-year term ending in June 2027.

Kareena Cuthbert

Kareena is the current Head of Performance of Scottish Bowls and has over 14 years’ experience working as a health care professional.  With over a decade of hockey experience in the international women’s team, leading the team to gold in the 2019 EuroHockey championships II as captain. Kareena is now Head Coach at Western Wildcats where she has propelled the ladies’ team to success in the Scottish Premiership whilst developing a thriving ladies’ section. Kareena has also held the ambassadorial role of vice president of Scottish Hockey and sat on the athlete advisory panel for Team Scotland and mentored in their Achieve Programme for Birmingham 2022.

Scott McCubbin

Scott is the Commercial Director at market leading sports technology company Sportable Technologies Ltd. Prior to his current role, Scott has held a variety of commercial roles in the sports industry over the last 12 years. Most notably, Scott was a key part of the Commercial Partnership team at Premier League side West Ham United during their transition to the London Stadium – a period of unprecedented commercial revenue growth for the club. Following that, Scott went on to lead the commercial department for NFL Franchise, the Jacksonville Jaguars, in the UK and then led the commercial partnership efforts at Premiership Rugby, following the investment from CVC Partners. Scott currently sits on the Commercial Advisory Board for British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) having represented the organisation at two World University Games in his days playing football.

Jane Harvey

Jane Harvey is an experienced Chair, Non-Executive Director and CEO.  For the last 18 years she has worked across sports governing bodies and youth services charities. Previous roles in sport include CEO of Snowsport Scotland and Scottish Council of Taekwondo. Jane led the Scottish Council of Taekwondo to Recognition in 2017 having spent two years working with the disparate group to focus on a common purpose. Last year after 18 years Jane left The Children’s Panel and is now focusing her attention on Safeguarding in Sport and, with her track record in Governance, on providing guidance on meeting the sportscotland Governance Framework requirements, so critical in the funding process.

Balvinder Sagoo

Balvinder is an experienced pharmacist, having worked in the community sector for more than 25 years promoting positive health outcomes for patients. He is currently the Scotland Pharmacy Manager for Boots UK with vast experience in both the retail and pharmacy business.  He also represents the wider Community Pharmacy network with his role as Vice Chair for Community Pharmacy Fife and is on the Community Pharmacy Scotland Council.

At Boots he is Chair of the Race, Ethnicity & Cultural Heritage (REACH) business resource group working with a leadership team to create a more inclusive workplace setting to support people reach their full potential.

At the weekend Balvinder coaches children’s hockey, and after a 25 years break has returned to playing hockey where he has the opportunity to be on the same pitch as son.

On the appointments Martin Shepherdson Chair of Scottish Hockey said:

“As we embark on the Build phase of our vision it is essential that our board evolves, modernises and supports the organisation in achieving its objectives. We are delighted to see the increase in interest we have had for our board positions with the excellent work done in our Reset phase and we very pleased to have four talented and knowledgeable people join our organisation. We feel it was also important that we had some independent expertise join the board. Two of the four appointments come from outside of the hockey community an as such give us the objectivity needed around our decision making as an organisaton”.

Barry Cawte CEO of Scottish Hockey added:

“I am delighted to see such an array and diverse range of experience skills arrive at the board. Sport is rapidly evolving and we have challenges around financial sustainability, equality diversity & inclusion and player welfare that we need to overcome as part of our vision to be world class. To this we need world class expertise on the board. It is exciting to see that we have achieved this.”

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