Association of Cricket Officials Issue 28 | Page 9

Les has been an umpire since the early 1990s. He began as a club umpire for Uxbridge Cricket Club doing Sunday social and the odd league and cup game. He moved to Singapore in the late 1990s and umpired there. As a member of the Asian panel, he umpired 16 ODIs and the Asian Cricket Cup Final. On returning to the UK in the early 2000s, he umpired in the Thames Valley League for a season before moving to the West of England Premier League, where he still stands on a regular basis. He is also the Appointments Officer for the league and for the Bristol and District Association, having been the Regional Chairman and Appointments Officer for the ’old’ South and South West region. He has taken both roles forward in the ‘new’ region. In 2010 he began umpiring visually impaired cricket and is now Chairman of the Blind Cricket Umpires Panel. He has recently returned for the Blind Cricket World Cup in India where he was the appointed ECB umpire for the competition. In his professional life, Les has held various senior positions for blue-chip organisations, including being Head of Global Operations for Reuters in New York. He has over 30 years’ multinational market experience having led transformational procurement programmes in the IT and Financial Services sectors worth over £3billion. Another facet in aligning ECB ACO with ECB is the structural reorganisation of the Executive, which has been implemented. As Head of ECB ACO, Nick Cousins has joined the Participation team, reporting to Bruce Cruse (Head of Participation). His role is primarily to drive the overall ECB officiating strategy and ensure the needs of the ACO membership are integrated into the Participation and Growth operational plans. To be consistent with the ECB new structure and our dedicated Customer Marketing and Systems team, Martin Gentle (Membership Services Manager, ECB ACO) and Karen Cassidy (Membership Services Officer, ECB ACO) will join the Customer Support team, reporting directly to Kate Earl (Customer Support Manager) as well as to Nick. This enables ECB ACO to benefit from the operational efficiency and outputs of the newly created Customer Marketing and Systems team. Also, following this principle, Ben Francis is now part of the Customer Marketing team, reporting directly to Sebastian Paynter as well as to Nick. This structure better supports the core responsibilities that Ben currently performs in marketing to the ACO membership. The final personnel change is John Overton who will now join Tracey Francis' Growth team and report directly to Tracey as well as to Nick. John will continue to focus on diversifying our officiating base and aligning the ACO volunteer workforce to meet the needs of our evolving game – driven through his leadership of the Young Officials programmes. As with Ben, John’s title – National Growth Executive, ACO – will also change to better reflect his responsibilities, as well as aligning with the new Participation and Growth structure. The final piece in the puzzle is to announce the recruitment of H amish Grant as the new ECB ACO Finance, Administration and Projects Officer. Hamish is a graduate of Durham University and joins from a London accountancy firm where he has been a member of their financial management team. His main responsibilities will be fourfold: Day-to-day management of ACO finances (he assumes this responsibility from Ben); day-to-day administration (he assumes this responsibility from John); being the 'Go to' man on all matters Who’s The Umpire (he will work with Aaron, ‘team lead’ the volunteer support provided by Ray Parker and Howard Hudd, and manage all expenses claims); and liaise with Ben and John to support and or lead on ACO projects such as the production of the magazine and the management of officials in festivals and finals.