Linda Plowright

Linda Plowright, Chief Executive, Sports Leaders UK
Linda has a passion for sport and the way sport can change lives and enrich communities. Her career in sport and recreation has spanned the public, private and freelance consultancy sectors over 34 years. A common theme of her career has been an interest in the training and development of the people who deliver sport and recreation services and the power of sport to change lives. She described her coming to Sports Leaders UK as a ‘home coming’ delighting in the opportunity to influence community recreation and harnessing the power of sport through Sports Leadership.

Linda has been CEO of Sports Leaders UK for eleven years during which time the charity has raised its number of Sports Leader trainees from 55,000 to a peak of 200,000 per year at the height of the Government’s encouragement of School Sport Partnerships and now settling at approximately 160,000 a year. Linda believes that charities have a key role to play in multi-agency delivery of more active, healthy and cohesive communities. She sees physical activity and education as strong tools that combine to provide powerful pathways to enrich and change lives for the better. In 2013 she was elected Chair of the new trade association COMPASS, representing the wide community of providers of physical activity and sport in schools and connecting Sports Leaders UK into sport delivery at national level with all those making a practical difference in communities.