Alastair Marks announced as new Chief Executive of British Rowing

British Rowing today announces Alastair Marks as its new Chief Executive, a role he has held on an interim basis since November 2021. Alastair starts his permanent position on 1 April

Alastair, 48, has held leadership positions across sport and business at the RFU, the LTA, McDonald’s and Nielsen Sport and is currently a non-Executive Director of British Gymnastics, where he also served as the interim CEO for a short period in 2021.

Alastair was selected from a field of 26 candidates which was narrowed down to a short list of six. Two panels then interviewed the candidates covering the areas of high performance, governance and sports management, people management and leadership, growing the sport, diversity and inclusion, delivery, change management and culture, and use of technology. A final two candidates were then asked to give a presentation on where they saw British Rowing (the organisation) and British rowing (the sport) five and ten years from now, and what role they saw themselves playing in that.

The interview panels across both the first and second round interviews were made up from a collection comprised of British Rowing Chair Mark Davies, British Rowing Deputy Chair Kate O’Sullivan, British Rowing Chair of Audit and Risk Committee Peter Milhofer, British Rowing Independent Director Karena Vleck, UK Sport CEO Sally Munday, Chair of British Rowing Eastern Region Andrew Blit, and former British Rowing Performance Director Sir David Tanner.

During his time as interim Chief Executive at British Rowing, Alastair has overseen the introduction of the national governing body’s new strategy which looks to grow all aspects of the sport and better engage with the communities served by the organisation across the country.

On his new role, Alastair said, “I am delighted to be continuing in this role with British Rowing on a permanent basis. Having had the opportunity to understand the sport and its potential in the past few months, it is clear there is a significant opportunity to grow rowing in all its forms be it indoors, on the river or the sea at every level. I look forward to continuing to work with everyone across the rowing community to deliver our ambitious new strategy in the years ahead.”

British Rowing Chair Mark Davies said, “We were delighted to have a strong set of applicants from across the world and, in a rigorous process, Alastair topped the list of every member on our diverse panels. I am delighted to be appointing him to this role on a full-time basis and excited about what we can do for the sport and its members in the coming years.”