England Golf Partnership appoints new chairman and board member

Nic Coward has been appointed as the independent Chairman of the England Golf Partnership (EGP), which works to grow the game by increasing participation. 

Martha Brass, a senior operations executive in the media sector, becomes an independent member of the Management Board. 

Nic was the General Secretary of the Premier League until 2015, the world’s most followed and commercially successful league, and a non-executive director of the Football Association. Prior to that he was the first chief executive of the British Horseracing Authority, the governing body of the UK’s second biggest spectator sport. 

He will also chair the EGP’s new Leadership Group which brings together key industry figures to collaborate on the development of a plan for golf in England for 2017 to 2021.

Martha is the Chief Executive Officer, International Operations, of the Endemol Shine Group, a global content creator, producer and distributor with a portfolio of international hits including Big Brother, Broadchurch, Deal or No Deal, MasterChef, Mr. Bean and many more. She is also a non-executive director of a leading Israeli commercial television franchisee.

She will provide leadership for an EGP group measuring the return on investment across initiatives to grow the game that receive funding from Sport England.

Nic and Martha join the Partnership at a time when figures from Sport England’s Active People Survey indicate that the decline in participation is stabilising.  

Sandy Jones, Chief Executive of the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA), said: “We are delighted to welcome Nic and Martha and look forward to working with them. This is a very exciting time for Partnership with the creation of the Leadership Group which will create new ideas and approaches.”

Nick Pink, Chief Executive of England Golf, added: “Nic and Martha bring tremendous experience to the board and this will be invaluable in helping us to meet our goals of encouraging more people to play golf more often and to increase the number of golf club members in England.”