Two Members reappointed to to UK Sport Board
The Secretary of State has reappointed Ismail Amla and Chris Pilling as Members of the UK Sport Board.
Ismail Amla
Appointed for a four year term commencing 29 April 2024.
Ismail is the Executive Vice President, Professional Services and Strategy at NCR Voyix. His team is made up of a global network of NCR Voyix technologists who deliver Technology Strategy Consulting for the Retail, Restaurants and Digital Banking sectors and technology implementation services covering platform integration, data analytics, AI, cloud, security and customer experience.
Prior to his role at NCR, Ismail served as Chief Growth Officer for Capita, headquartered out of the UK, Managing Partner for IBM’s Global Business Services in North America, Chief Executive Officer for the consulting firm Capco North America and served as a senior Partner for Accenture, where he was a member of the leadership team.
Ismail is a non-executive director of the Great British Railways Transition Team Board, a board member for UK Sport, a board member for Bradford Literature Festival, and a fellow at University of Salford Business School. Ismail has co-authored a book, “From Incremental to Exponential: How Large Companies Can See the Future and Rethink Innovation.
Chris Pilling
Appointed for a four year term commencing 29 April 2024.
Chris was born in Manchester and was the first of his family to go to University, graduating from Jesus College Cambridge in 1987. His career started at P&G in brand management, and he later held senior roles at British Airways, and as ASDA’s Marketing & Customer Service Director. He became CEO of first direct in 2006, and led HSBC’s UK Branch Network and Direct channels. In 2011 Chris became CEO of the Yorkshire Building Society, the UK’s 2nd largest mutual ‘bank’.
Non-Executive roles:
Chris has held NED board roles in the public sector for over 20 years. Initially with ‘Welcome to Yorkshire’, and later at the Department of Health & Social Care (2011-17) when Jeremy Hunt was SoS. In 2017 UK Sport appointed Chris as Chairman of the Yorkshire 2019 Ltd. to run the UCI Road World Cycling Championships, the UK’s biggest single sporting event, attracting 329m worldwide TV viewers. Chris was appointed by DCMS to the UK Sport board in April 2020 and was an independent member of the DCMS Covid-19 loans committee. In 2023 he helped review the financial state of professional Rugby Union for the SoS.
Since 2017, Chris has also been a Non-Executive Director of Barclays Bank UK Ltd, the UK retail bank serving 24m customers; as well as Musgrave Ltd, a 148 year old family owned business in Ireland.
Chris is married with 2 daughters and lives in North Yorkshire, enjoying road cycling, playing football & hiking the Dales as much as he can.
Remuneration and Governance Code
Members of the UK Sport Board are remunerated £218 per day for up to 24 days per annum. This appointment has been made in accordance with the Cabinet Office’s Governance Code on Public Appointments.
The appointments process is regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. Under the Code, any significant political activity undertaken by an appointee in the last five years must be declared. This is defined as including holding office, public speaking, making a recordable donation, or candidature for election. Neither Chris nor Ismail has declared any significant political activity.