Tanja Dik has been appointed chief executive of the Johan Cruijff ArenA, home of Dutch Eredivisie football club Ajax.
Dik (pictured left) will assume the role on September 1 and will replace Henk Markerink, who is retiring after 25 years. Dik has worked for airport company Schiphol Group for the past five years as its general director of consumer products and services.
Dik previously worked for Stage Entertainment for several years, leading the company’s Dutch live entertainment activities and theatres as its Netherlands director before serving as international venue director.
Johan Cruijff ArenA, which is one of the host venues for the ongoing UEFA Euro 2020 national team tournament, will celebrate its 25th birthday on August 14.
Guy Henderson will retire as chief executive of Ascot Racecourse following next year’s Royal Meeting.
Ascot has appointed executive search specialists Spencer Stuart to identify candidates to replace Henderson (pictured right), who became chief executive in January 2015.
Rachel Taulelei has been appointed chair of Sky Stadium in Wellington, New Zealand.
Taulelei has been a member of the Wellington Regional Stadium Trust since 2014. She currently serves as chief executive of Kono, a family-owned Māori food and beverage producer and exporter of wine, cider, craft beer, seafood, fruit and natural fruit bars.
Taulelei, who also chairs New Zealand’s APEC Business Advisory Council, will replace John Shewan as chair of Sky Stadium on July 1. Shewan is retiring from the role after nine years with the 34,500-seat stadium, which hosts rugby, cricket and football matches.
Michelle Enright has been appointed chief executive of the local organising committee for next year’s ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in Australia.
Enright has been acting in the role for the past 12 months and joined the local organising committee in 2018 as general manager of finance and business services. She was promoted to chief operating officer before stepping in as interim chief executive in June 2020.
Enright has previously held a number of senior management roles across Netball NZ, High Performance Sport NZ and NZ Academy of Sport North Island, and has also worked on events such as the FIFA U20 World Cup and the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
Keith Powels has been named technical and building manager of the under-construction Swansea Arena project.
Vicki Francis has also been appointed head of marketing and sales at the 3,500-seat arena, while Lara Caple-Harding and Sophie Humphreys have taken up roles as operations manager and conference and events manager, respectively. The team will work alongside general manager Lisa Mart.
Jamey Rootes, the former president of the Houston Texans NFL team, has been named chief executive of the Houston Dynamo Major League Soccer franchise.
Rootes, who stepped down from his role with the Texans in February, also becomes chief executive of the Houston Dash NWSL team. Rootes had served as Texans president since 2000.
Rootes previously worked in MLS as president and general manager of Columbus Crew.
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 in our next round-up.
