Asia

Industry appointments round-up: May 19-25

A round-up of key appointments from within the sports and events industries over the past week.

Ian Ayre has taken up a new role as chief executive of Major League Soccer expansion franchise Nashville. Ayre (pictured) formerly served as chief executive of English Premier League team Liverpool. Ayre will be tasked with building and leading the Nashville club, which was announced as an expansion franchise in December 2017. He most recently worked at 1860 Munich in Germany.

Sports and tourism executive John Lee is to head a taskforce consisting of industry and commercial experts that will evaluate the management of state government venues as part of Queensland’s first Sport and Active Recreation Strategy. The strategy is due to be released by the end of the year.

Dale Koger has been appointed as vice-president and general manager at US-based PCL Construction, whose projects include Regina’s Mosaic Stadium, Toronto’s Aviva Centre and Los Angeles’ StubHub Center. Koger has worked on a host of venues, such as the new Los Angeles stadium for NFL teams the Rams and Chargers, along with Lincoln Financial Field and Madison Square Garden.

PCL Construction has also appointed Gary Birdsall as vice-president and will lead the company’s sports division. Birdall has worked on more than 20 major sports projects, including Levi’s Stadium, Golden 1 Center, Yankee Stadium and the recently-opened Banc of California Stadium.

Jim Farstad, the technology consultant for U.S. Bank Stadium, has been appointed as the permanent executive director of the venue in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Farstad has served as the interim executive director of the stadium, which is the home of NFL team the Minnesota Vikings, on two occasions.

The Rugby Football Union, the governing body of rugby union in England, is seeking a new health, safety and environment (HSE) manager to drive the implementation of the HSE strategy for the RFU and Twickenham Stadium. Full details of the role can be found here.

Live Nation Entertainment’s Japan team has hired James Smith as its vice-president of touring and festivals. Live Nation said the move signals its ongoing investment in Asia. Smith will focus on attracting top global artists to Live Nation’s event portfolio across Japan. He will report to Live Nation Japan president John Boyle.

Do you have news of an appointment that we should know about? Get in touch by emailing news.editor@thestadiumbusiness.com and we’ll include it on our next round-up.

Image: Web Summit