Our Story

For me it’s all about teamwork. From my earliest days of playing club football through to leading a multi-disciplinary team on the development of the new Urban Adventure in Long Beach LA, success has relied on the collaboration of team mates. I love working as part of a unit where everyone is pulling together to achieve something amazing, whether its delivering a fantastic new venue or organising a spectacular event.

I first got the bug for big projects when I was part of the senior team that delivered and operated ExCeL – the huge events venue in London’s Docklands. My role entailed leading on the project management of the venue construction and the development of the ExCeL estate as well as staging of some of the most challenging events. This led on to my dream job within the London 2012 Organising Committee where I spent 7 years planning and delivering the venues for the Olympics and Paralympics, in my home town – what an amazing experience that was!

As a founder of Trivandi in 2013 with James and Jon, I have been leading large teams on the delivery and operation of world class venues and mega-events around the world including in Peru, USA, Turkmenistan, Qatar, China, Japan, Australia and the UK.

What’s the ingredient that has been the key to the success of all of these projects? Easy – its all about teamwork!

When I was appointed as a Director of the London 2012 Bid Team in October 2003 several people said to me “London will never win. Why are you doing it?”. On paper everything was stacked against the UK but I joined the Bid team because I believed London could deliver an incredible Olympic and Paralympic Games, and I wanted to do all I could to give the UK a chance to show it. I started working on the Legacy Strategy for London’s Bid and helped develop the Venue Masterplan, costs and Transport Plans.

When we won the Games in July 2005, I joined the Organising Committee, LOCOG, as Director of Venues and Infrastructure, responsible for the delivery and operation of the venues and Olympic Park. It was my dream job and I learnt so much about delivering a mega project, managing complexity and engaging multiple stakeholders.

One thing I found during my time at London 2012 was that the global mega events and venues business was lacking senior people who could operate at a strategic level to advise Governments, Boards and Host Cities. That is why I co-founded Trivandi to plug the gap and share our know-how on delivering mega-projects. I am CEO of Trivandi and have worked on over 15 mega-events and venue projects since 2012. I was awarded an OBE in 2013 in the New Year’s Honours list. I started my career with Drivers Jonas property consultants in 1992 and was made a Partner of the business, which went on to merge with Deloitte. I am a Fellow of the RICS. In my time at Drivers Jonas I was lead project manager on 7 major new stadiums and lead consultant on numerous sport and leisure projects, with major regeneration schemes at their heart.

My childhood ambition was to play sport at a professional level. Whilst moderate successes were achieved on the field of play, little did I envisage my love for sport would take me down a very privileged career path of being involved in the organisation of some of the most recognisable and successful major sporting events of the last decade, including Olympic Games, Paralympic Games, Commonwealth Games, Super Bowls and Tour de France stages.

As the Head of National Projects for Sport England I was involved in the delivery of strategic sporting venue projects for the Manchester Commonwealth Games, English Institute of Sport and the new Wembley Stadium. However, supporting London’s Olympic Bid in 2005 (incidentally where I first met James) was the start of an amazing 8 year journey to deliver what will always be considered the moment the UK became world leaders in event planning and big project delivery. So transferring to the London Organising Committee in 2006 and playing my part to plan and lead the operation on the Olympic Park was in many respects my childhood sporting ambition being realised.

Since we founded Trivandi back in 2013 the consultancy has gone from strength to strength to support the delivery of world class events in Glasgow, Rio, San Francisco, Dubai and Ashgabat, plus in the process we continue to provide strategic and operational advice on the next tranche of major events to be staged. It is the continuing variety and versatility in the sport and events industry which inspires me to keep striving to deliver excellent services to our clients.