London: English county club Sussex has appointed Beth Barrett-Wild, the former Director of Women’s Professional Game at the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), as the first female chief executive in the county’s history.
Sussex also proposed former England bowler Holly Colvin as one of five new non-executive directors.
Barrett-Wild will join Sussex on January 1, 2027, after 13 years at the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), where her roles included director of the women’s professional game, head of The Hundred’s women’s competition and tournament director of this year’s Women’s T20 World Cup, the BBC reported on Tuesday.
“Her achievements in the game have propelled women’s cricket to an entirely new level,” Sussex chair Ed Warner was quoted as saying in the report. “I’m excited at the prospect of working closely with Beth to ensure a bright future at Sussex Cricket.”
Beth Barrett-Wild joined the ECB in 2013 as Media Manager for the England Women’s team, at a time when women’s cricket was still largely amateur and far less visible. Since then, she has worked across multiple roles with a consistent focus on growing the visibility, accessibility and appeal of women’s cricket. Along the way, she has had a role in several major moments, including leading on the audience strategy for the Women’s Ashes series in 2023, which saw record-breaking growth for the women’s game, and launching The Hundred in 2021, which has gone on to attract over a million fans to women’s matches.
The other proposed appointee is also quite experienced. Colvin, 37, played for Sussex from 2005 to 2015, winning two women’s County Championships, and hit the winning run for England in the 2009 World Cup final.
She is now set to join the county’s board alongside another former Sussex Women’s player, Alison Bruce, as non-executive directors.
Entrepreneur and cricket coach Paul Farris, business owner and former Sussex Young Cricketers’ vice-captain Mark Jeffries, and BBC journalist and Sussex member Callum May have also been proposed as other non-executive directors.
All five will join the board for three-year terms once their positions are ratified at the club’s annual general meeting next March.
–IANS–
