Chair: David Jones

David had a 38 year career with John Lewis with over 20 years as a Board Director.  He has extensive experience of Non-Executive roles, including Chair, spanning Retail, Sport, Conservation, Preservation, Visitor Attractions and Local Government.  Within Sport he sits on the ECB Board for the new “Hundred” Tournament and is a Non-Executive Director on the Board of the British Horseracing Authority.  

He is a Trustee of the Zoological Society of London and also a Director of The Watercress Line, a Heritage Steam Railway.  David was educated at Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital in Bristol and then University College London.  He first visited the Club in the 1960s with his grandfather, Jack, who was a passionate fan.  He was elected to the Club’s Executive Board in April 2014. 

 

Deputy Chairman: Steve Nelson

Steve is committed to, and has a great passion for sport and physical activity.  He believes people within organisations can make a difference and works to bring the best out of colleagues, staff, managers and all others whose roles influence organisational success.   
 
He is Chief Executive of the West of England Sport Trust, leading the development of this County Sports Partnership as one of the first to become an independent company and Charitable Trust in 2006.  Steve has held a number of non-executive roles within the sport sector alongside his role as CEO, and is looking forward to engaging with the GCCC Executive Board.   His background includes:

  • Professional Basketball player for 15 years, 18 England Caps, and Captain of GB Students 
  • Combining a playing career with a full time degree, then his first role in Sports Development
  • Head of Development for England Basketball
  • Creating the County Sports Partnership for Sussex
  • He has also worked on a consultancy basis for UK Sport as part of the International Inspiration programme, working in India and Trinidad and Tobago. 

 
Outside of work, he is a volunteer basketball coach at junior national league level, with his team crowned under 18 men’s national champions in 2011.  He has developed and supported more than a dozen players that have gone on to represent England or GB, including his daughter Kyla and son Luke – both have captained their age 
group national teams and have earned scholarships to division 1 colleges in the USA. Luke is now playing professionally in the top league in Spain.

 

Honorary Treasurer: Rebecca Watkin BSc (Hons), ACA (ICAEW)

Rebecca qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2014.  She is currently the Chief Finance Officer of a multiacademy trust in Bristol; consisting of two special schools and two alternative provisions.  She is responsible for all operational aspects of the Trust: finance, HR, IT and premises.  Becky also utilises her skills in a voluntary capacity as treasurer of a number Girl Guiding organisations. 

 

Chief Executive: Will Brown 
The “executive” of the Club is led by Will Brown who has forged a career in sport holding positions previously with Sporting Index, Cricinfo, The Lawn Tennis Association and, prior to joining Gloucestershire Cricket, Betfair where he oversaw a £200m+ UK & Ireland P&L. Will has a passion for all things sport and firmly believes in the “power of sport” from grass roots through to the professional game and the good that it can and should drive.

His previous roles have seen him work in and lead commercial and operational teams and he has great experience on both sides of the commercial fence having sold high level deals and also having bought and activated sponsorships such as Betfair’s sponsorship of the Test Match Grounds, Manchester United, Barcelona, Ascot racecourse and England rugby.  Will is a lifelong Gloucestershire Cricket and Bath rugby fan and is married with three boisterous toddler boys with a home in Bath. 

 

Sally Cordwell: Co-opted Member

Sally has lived and worked in Bristol for just over 10 years and has held a range of roles at well known organisations in the area. She is CEO of Bristol Aerospace Museum and has been Interim Executive Director at Bristol Old Vic Theatre Trust, Deputy Chief Executive at SS Great Britain, a non-Executive Director of St Pauls Carnival as well as spending time at the Diocese of Bristol. She spent her early career in marketing and communications roles in a range of organisations including the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, NHS and Arts Council.

Sally is a single parent to three children. She is a lifelong Liverpool FC fan, and now the family are Bristol City season ticket holders as well as new members of Gloucestershire County Cricket Club. 

 

Asif Rehmanwala: Co-opted Member

Asif is CEO of Ecotricity – the world’s first renewable energy company.  He has been at the heart of the company’s operation for 12 years having previously held multiple management roles at E.ON.  He started his career with the Energy Regulator.

Asif became CEO in 2020 and has successfully navigated the business through Covid and the UK energy market crisis. Prior to this he was COO and developed the core trading operating capability and strategy of the business.

Asif is also a Board Director at Forest Green Rovers (the world’s greenest football club) which was recently promoted to League 1.  He is passionate about cutting edge performance analytics – using data to optimise team performance.

He was also an independent member of Gloucestershire Football Association where he sat on numerous disciplinary panels.

He has always been a big Sport enthusiast has been involved in various Cricket and Football clubs.  

Born and bred in the County, he grew up watching Gloucestershire Cricket Club.

 

Dr Adeela ahmed Shafi MBE: Co-opted Member

Adeela is an Associate Professor in Education at the University of Gloucestershire. Adeela leads on a number of international EU research projects with partners in 13 European countries including Italy, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Romania, Turkey and Hungary, Greece and France, focusing on policy and practice on the education of young people who come into conflict with the law and in custodial settings.  Other projects include Active Games for Change which draws on Adeela’s psychology background where the project develops the social and emotional competencies of young offenders. Skills4Life is a project focused on developing a curriculum for custodial settings which focuses on developing the personal and life skills needed for life when back in the community. Adeela has an established publishing profile in the education of young people in custodial or other youth justice settings.

Adeela has always been an active community worker working to support disadvantaged and marginalised communities, standing for MP in 2010 in Bristol. Adeela is vice-Chair of the Avon & Somerset Police Scrutiny Panel and has recently founded the new Bristol Muslim Strategic Leadership Group (BMSLG).  Being a member of the GCC Board is a way in which Adeela feels she can contribute to the development of cricket in the region so it can both give to the community in terms of good fair cricket and draw the best talent from its communities. Given her sustained work and contribution to society, Adeela was awarded an MBE for services to social justice in Bristol in the Queens 2020 New Years Honours list.
 

Kathryn Davis: Co-opted Member

Kathryn has spent almost all of her professional life working in tourism, hospitality and leisure, the last 18 years of which have been with Destination Bristol.  This has taken her from a Marketing Executive developing early versions of VisitBristol and digital communication to Head of Tourism, working on regional, national and international programmes across all areas of the visitor economy including overseeing both the visitor marketing and convention bureau delivery, along with the development of local industry engagement, research, product and partnership development.  This includes working on major projects such as the Cricket World Cup.   
 
Kathryn is a member of the Tourism Management Institute and a regular speaker at industry events.  In 2018, she was awarded the Outstanding Contribution to Tourism at the Bristol, Bath and Somerset Tourism awards.  She lives in Horfield with her family and is both a cricket and football fan, supporting Gloucestershire County Cricket Club and Bristol City Football Club.  

 

Richard Foley - Elected Member

Bristolian, Richard, joined Gloucestershire in April 2023 having enjoyed a 35-year legal career the majority of which – 33 years – was spent at one firm, Pinsent Masons. Until October 2022 when he retired, Richard was the Global CEO and Senior Partner of the internationally renowned organisation, which employs 3,500 people located in 26 offices around the world.

As a practicing lawyer, Richard advised on some of the largest energy, rail, road, airport and port projects in the Middle East, Asia and Europe. As Senior Partner at Pinsent Masons, Richard successfully instilled a way of working that was underpinned by the belief that profit and success comes as a consequence of doing business “the right way and for the right reasons”. Under Richard’s stewardship, the business was transformed to embrace purpose as a strategy.

A cricket fan, Richard was born within a mile of the Seat Unique Stadium and played Bristol & District League cricket for a decade in his 20s and 30s. As well as a passion for the game, Richard brings with him to Gloucestershire an understanding of how to achieve sustainable growth and an over-arching desire to contribute to his hometown club.

 

David Anthony Graveney, OBE: Elected Member

Dave Graveney was elected to the Club’s Executive Board (for a three-year term) at the 2020 Annual General Meeting.

He was previously a co-opted member (12 March 2013 to 12 March 2016) when he was heavily involved in the recruitment of Richard Dawson to the role of Head Coach.  David has also served on numerous Committees for the ECB, MCC, Professional Cricketers’ Association and Lord’s Taverners.

David was the Chairman of the England Test selectors from 1997 to 2008 and on 31 December 2005, he was awarded the OBE for services to cricket.

Gloucestershire supporters will know of his family connections;  his father (Ken Graveney) and uncle (Tom Graveney) both had prolific playing careers with Gloucestershire Cricket.

David was a useful right-hand batsman and an orthodox left-arm spinner. He represented Gloucestershire from 1972 to 1990 playing a total of 697 matches.  He also captained the side from 1982 through to 1988.

In First-Class cricket, he played 379 matches and took an outstanding 815 wickets with a career best of 8/85. He also scored 6,107 runs with a top score of 119.

David played 318 One-Day matches for Gloucestershire, taking 231 wickets with a best of 5/11. He also scored 2009 runs in Gloucestershire colours.  He won two One-Day titles with Gloucestershire, being part of the first Gloucestershire side to officially win silverware for the Club in the Gillette Cup Final victory against Sussex in 1973.  He took two wickets in the 1977 Final victory against Kent in the Benson & Hedges Cup.

 
Matthew Windows: Elected Member

Matt, who was born in Bristol and educated at Clifton College and Durham University, where he obtained a BA Honours degree in sociology, is probably best known as a Gloucestershire County Cricket Club player from 1992 - 2006 during which time he was an integral member in the Club’s success of the golden years as the "One Day Kings."  He played over 170 First-Class matches for the Club along with honours at a higher level, representing England "A" on tour to South Africa and Zimbabwe.  During his playing career, Matt qualified as an Investment Manager working for Rowan Dartington stockbrokers in his off seasons.  During 2007, Matt joined Barclays Wealth Investment Management where he became a Director of the business, responsible for the management of client assets.  In February 2017, Matt joined LGT Vestra to set up the Bristol Office where he has recently been made Partner having grown the office that currently manages in excess of £300m.   
 
Matt is very much an understated sportsman having excelled in numerous sports, not least to the successes of Gloucestershire County Cricket Club; he is now heavily involved in the junior section of Chew Valley Rugby Club where he spends much of his Sunday mornings! 

A passion for recreational Cricket in Gloucestershire and the desire to influence a greater level of integration and stream lining of our joint Boards is a main focus.  He sees huge potential for step change improvement and is looking forward to working alongside the newly formed Executive Management Team for the greater good of Cricket in Gloucestershire. 

 

Mark Brunt – Elected Member

Mark was born and brought up in Stroud.  Moving away from the county for work, he never lost his sporting roots, especially Gloucestershire Cricket and Gloucester Rugby.  Mark has played cricket wherever he has lived and been active in local school and youth cricket.  His main connection with the Club, as well as being a Member, has been as a Committee Member of the Gloucestershire Exiles.  For ten years he edited the Exiles’ Cricket Magazine and is currently Secretary of the organisation, which raises funds for emerging Gloucestershire cricketers. Trips “home” for the Cheltenham Festival are sacrosanct in his family calendar, for many years with his father and in more recent times with his son.

He works in an international commercial environment in the chemical industry and currently holds positions within two national trade associations.

He feels that cricket has made terrific advances in recent years, notably the women’s game, with Gloucestershire at the forefront of this movement. He is keen to bring his energy, business experience, and a supporter’s eye to support these developments, whilst being aware that success for the senior side is the driving force behind much of what can be achieved in other areas.