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.