Featured image credit: ECB
Nimesh Kataria has been appointed as the new chief financial officer at the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).
Kataria (pictured) will join the ECB in April from Warner Bros. Discovery’s international sports division. In his current role as chief financial officer of the division, he oversees Eurosport, Global Cycling Network, Discovery Sports Events and the Olympics.
In his new role, Kataria will be responsible for financial reporting and business planning, and he will also lead key business services including information and technology, and procurement. He will succeed Scott Smith, who is leaving the ECB after eight years in the role.
Marylebone Cricket Club, which owns Lord’s, has announced that Mark Nicholas will be recommended to the membership as the next club chair.
If approved by members, Nicholas will succeed Bruce Carnegie-Brown on October 1. Nicholas is currently serving a one-year term as MCC president and will be recommended as the new chair at the club’s AGM in May.
Nicholas also chairs the Southern Brave team, which competes in The Hundred, and serves as a non-executive director of media rights agency River Media Partners. His professional cricket career spanned over two decades and following his retirement he moved into the media.
Peter Schwenkow, founder and chief executive of entertainment services company DEAG, has announced the handover of operational management of the firm to his co-chief executive Detlef Kornett.
From April 1, Schwenkow will assume a new role of founder and senior advisor at DEAG, handing over responsibility as chief executive. He made the announcement during a reception for his 70th birthday at the Wintergarten Varieté in Berlin.
Going forward, Kornett will be responsible for the continuation of the company’s growth alongside fellow board members Moritz Schwenkow, Christian Diekmann and David Reinecke, as well as senior vice-presidents Stuart Galbraith, Benedikt Alder, Jacqueline Zich and Oliver Hoppe.
Pete Guelli has been named chief operating officer of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills and the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres and will oversee the business operations of both teams.
Josh Dziurlikowski, who was serving as interim chief operating officer of the Bills, has been named senior vice-president of finance and business operations of the team. Rob Minter, interim chief operating officer of the Sabres, will become senior vice-president of business operations of the franchise.
Guelli has spent the past five years as chief business officer of the NFL’s New York Giants, and previously worked as chief operating officer of the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets. He has worked with the Bills before, having served as the team’s senior vice-president of business ventures from 1998 to 2009.
The Bills and Sabres are owned by Terry Pegula. The Bills are currently building a new stadium, while the Sabres recently announced plans to fit a new roof at KeyBank Center.
Derek Wilson has been reappointed as chair of the Sports Ground Safety Authority (SGSA) for a three-year term.
Wilson has served as chair of the SGSA since 2021 and is a long-serving board member of the company, having joined in 2009 when it was the Football Licencing Authority. A qualified architect, he was a founding director at Lobb Sports Architecture, which evolved to become Populous, and also founded Derek Wilson Architects, Wilson Owens Owens, and Wilson SEA.
Wilson also served as head of design and overlay at the London Organising Committee for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and as lead sports architect for the London 2012 bid.
Populous co-founder Earl Santee has been appointed as CEO of the company, one of a number of strategic global organisational changes for the firm.
Read our full story from Friday for more details.
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.
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