Meet the Board members

Meet the Non-Executive Directors

Meet the Non-Executives Directors on our Board who are helping to shape our strategy:

Yawar Abbas

Yawar leads the delivery of the Sport and Physical Activity Strategy for Manchester City Council as Head of Sport and Events for Manchester Active. He is also the Chair of a number of Strategic Sports Development and Major Events boards for Manchester and is a longstanding part of Manchester’s Major Sports Events Team, including event roles as Director and Stakeholder Board Member on many major events. He has led multiple bids for world championship sports events.

Yawar notably has a prestigious background in squash, including representing England at junior level, as well as winning 10 senior county titles, eight national titles (masters) and two British Open titles. He is also currently the Chair of Selectors for England Squash, Chair of the North West Counties Squash League and a Level 3 qualified coach.

Mark Jeffreys

Mark is the Director of Sport and Physical Activity at Birmingham City University developing an infrastructure for sport within the university. He has worked in sport and education for over 25 years with a specialism in coaching. Mark is still an active coach and coaches the English Universities Women’s Rugby 7s team. Mark has had previous Non-Executive Director experience being a member of the British Equestrian Federation from 2014 to 2018.

Mark has been involved with England Squash for a number of years, developing and delivering the High Performance Coach Award.

Heidi Leseur

Heidi has been involved in the squash community for the last seven years in a range of capacities, from volunteer coach, head coach, county chair to Squash Girls Can promoter.

Born and raised in Bermuda, Heidi has a background in archaeological conservation before becoming involved in squash after seeing low numbers of women participating at her daughter’s squash club. Passionate about promoting coach and leadership development for young people through her Sportivate projects, Heidi was awarded Volunteer of the Year 2015 from Leap (Bucks CSP) in recognition of her work.

Andrew Light

Andrew has a strong finance background, developed during his 15-year career at Associated British Foods and nine years at Warburtons where he is currently Chief Financial Officer.

Andrew is a very keen squash player and continues to play competitively. He was a key member of the team bringing a Regional Masters event to the North West for the first time. He has also held a number of roles on the governing body of Grove Park Squash Club and the holding entity, Manchester Rugby Club, where he is currently joint Chair of Squash.

Nick Murrills

Nick is a Legal Director at Gateley Plc based in the firm’s Manchester office. He is a commercial litigator and sports lawyer. Nick has acted for a wide range of clients including Premier League football clubs, international athletes / managers, sports governing bodies and sports agents.

Nick has an extensive background in squash. He has played in the North West Counties League for many years for Bowdon. He has also played Yorkshire league squash as well as captaining Cheshire. He previously coached at the Manchester Squash Academy.

He currently sits as Legal Adviser to the North West Counties League.

Wendy Newlove

Originally from New Zealand, Wendy has 23 years’ experience working in strategy consulting, government intelligence and investigations. Wendy has been employed by IBM since 2001 as a business management consultant helping organisations to bring about performance improvement and navigate technology-led change.

Wendy is a recreational squash player with 25 years' experience up to inter-club level in England and New Zealand, and now plays at her local London clubs, The Lansdowne Club and Dolphin Square. She previously ran a large social squash league in London for 12 years and captained IBM squash teams for corporate competitions.

Mayuri Nigam

Eamonn O'Rourke

Eamonn has worked in the sport and leisure industry for 40 years. He is retired Head of Leisure Services at Manchester City Council and a Board member of Trafford Leisure Trust. He has vast experience of working with the voluntary sport sector and also with Sport England. Eamonn was also Chairman of the 2017 PSA World Squash Championships Stakeholder Board for the World Squash Championships held in Manchester in December 2017.

Eamonn has played squash for more than 30 years and has been involved in the development of the sport at all levels, including bringing the National Squash Centre to Manchester.

Eamonn is England Squash’s Senior Independent Director (SID), as required under the Code for Sports Governance.

The responsibilities of this role include:

providing a sounding board for the Chair;
serving as an intermediary for the other Directors when necessary;
acting as an alternative contact for stakeholders to share any concerns if the normal channels of the Chair or the organisation’s management fail to resolve the matter or in cases where such contact is inappropriate; and
leading on the process to appraise the Chair’s performance.

Eamonn is also the Board’s lead director for welfare and safety. He has responsibility for checking and challenging the Board on decisions that affect welfare and safety across the organisation and is able to support the executive staff for issues in this area.