World Sailing – the only way is up - Interview with new CEO Andy Hunt

by Rob Kothe on 20 Jan 2016 ISAF decision making over the last decade has been to put it mildly ‘open to criticism'. The decision making processes within ISAF were widely criticized in the run up to the 2012 ISAF elections which installed Carlo Croce and his current executive who promised better things.

Sadly, nothing much seems to have changed.

As World Sailing Vice President Gary Jobson admits, in sailing terms, the world body is in choppy water.

Dramas continue, no matter how glowing the report on World Sailing role in the Arab-Israeli Visa issue, it does not change the fact that World Sailing at a number of levels dropped the ball.

Pollution on the Rio 16 playing field is the looming issue, with lots of complaints that ISAF has not being doing enough to have this area addressed.

The lack of internal leadership in Southampton cannot have helped in either of those areas.

ISAF President Croce in 2014 said ISAF needed to take its time to replace Jerome Pels in October 2014. It was July 2015 before Peter Sowrey was installed and he was gone with five months. Mistakes made, lessons learned, his replacement arrived quickly.

Are things looking up? We hope so

The third CEO of this troubled organization in just 14 months has arrived.

Andy Hunt, (52) the new guy in the hot seat comes well credentialed. He is the former CEO of the British Olympic Association and a non-executive Director of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games as its new Chief Executive Officer.

Hunt talked to Y&Y/Sail-World this week.

Can we start with your sporting administration history? You obviously had a high profile position with the BOC but can we go further back?

My key role in sports administration was with the British Olympic Committee as you rightly say and the organizing Committee for the London events. Subsequently I’ve been the Strategic Advisor to the Board of Commonwealth Games England, for the Commonwealth Games which were in Glasgow in 2014, and England Hockey, which is the national federation for hockey, and Gloucester Rugby which is an English Premiership rugby team.

Prior to that this sports administration experience, I was in business.

You were involved with Team Origin?

I was appointed as a CEO of Team Origin ahead of the 33rd America’s Cup, we were about to move the family down to Valencia, and then the project was delayed whilst the legal battle between Oracle and Alinghi ensued and the role didn’t commence.

In your role as the British Olympic Committee CEO, you’ve seen lots of structures with large councils, million frequently, executive CEOs, secretariats; given the fact that there’s been a lot of criticism with ISAF over the decision making processes, what do you see your role as the CEO in ratio to the executive and the overall structure and how improvements can be made in decision-making processes?

Well obviously my role right now as defined in the current government structure, but you know I think I’m looking forward to working with all of the stakeholders so over time we can make the governance, the overall governance a World Sailing example of best practice.

And I’m sure that will require some simplification over time, but right now I’m actually working under the governance structure that exists. But there is definitely an opportunity for simplification which probably is something that will be considered in the next for year.

Pollution in Rio, that’s obviously that effects numbers of sports. Do you have any comments on that?

My briefing on that issue is over the next week or so, but I know there is substantial work that’s being done by the team here in combination with the organizing committee and the IOC. So I haven’t officially been brought up to speed on this, but you know the number one priority for World Sailing is the safety of athletes and fair competition, so it’s right up there at the top of my priority list to go down to Rio myself to get an understanding, of what has been done and to make sure that we are doing everything that is possible to ensure those two criteria are being met.

From everything I understand thus far, there’s a huge amount of work going on here, and there are some top medical experts that have been involved in the process. But it’s a little early for me to give you a judgment as to whether there’s more that can be done. But you know, the test event in August was a great success and the feedback from sailors was very good.

Have you also been aware of the comment made by one of the sailors that they’ll put up with anything when gold medals are at stake? While I can understand why sailors might say that, I’m not sure that’s a risk-management position that ISAF, or World Sailing can surely take?’

As I said to you, our role is to ensure that World Sailing is satisfied with the preparation of the venue so there is a completely safe and fair competition.

Again, I’m not familiar with that particular comment, but it’s going to be, rest assured, this is absolutely, top of my priority list.

Arab Israeli non-diplomatic relations and visa issues are not a problem that’s unique to sailing?

I think you’re right to say that there are challenges right across international sport right now and the experience that we have had with the Israeli sailors gaining entry to Malaysia is not unusual.

However, we deeply regret that the Israeli sailors weren’t able to participate in the regatta. We’ve undertaken an investigation and that was considered by an extraordinary meeting of the executive committee last Friday, which I attended. We have published the report from that together with the sanctions that could be imposed for future events if our regulations on nondiscrimination are not adhered to.

There were a number of different reports were produced, and findings, this is a summary of the findings, our recommendation, and our clarification of the regulations that need to be adhered to going forward and what we’ll be doing with event organizers who already have been successful in winning events, in seeking assurance that they can apply with regulations.

Specifically, the one in Israel, and now the one in the Arab States?

Actually we will be asking all of the event organisers for those events that have already been awarded. And there’s a long history of events winning bids and not doing a whole lot of the promised things, not just this area.

I can’t comment or give you an opinion on previous bids, but the potential sanctions are real, and a demonstration that we will not tolerate this happening again.

Now going to the lighter end of town, your sailing history?

A keen amateur I think is the best way to put it, but you know I started sailing at school, about seven years old on an inland lake in an old gravel pit.

But then really came back into sailing in my late 30’s and then through my 40’s and so on, and moved onto yacht racing.

I’ve been doing a lot of sailing on friends’ yachts, and that kind of sparked me into wanting to acquire a boat myself. I completed my Yachtmaster exams and all the other different components, and that was it and I acquired an X-Yachts X-43.

I’m a little mad about boats broadly, my kids (aged 22,19,15 and 14) have been brought up in boats since they were a few weeks old.

And your summary?

This has been a long journey to today. I’m a passionate sports fan and I love participating in this sport and I've had the extraordinary privilege of leading the British Olympic Committee and being part of London 2012. Now to have the chance to work within the sport that has been top of my passions is really a fantastic opportunity.

There’s so much potential here, there’s so much potential for World Sailing and our sport. And I hope I’m going to look back in a few years’ time and just say that it’s been great to have had that chance to contribute with the team here to moving this sport forward.