The man behind badminton: A Q&A with Badminton England CEO, Adrian Christy

At the recent BT Sport Industry Awards, Badminton England walked away with the Governing Body of the Year award. We caught up with their delighted CEO, Adrian Christy, to ask him a few questions about the NGB's success.

How does it feel for you and your team to be named Governing Body of the Year?

It is massive for us. Last year was a great year for English badminton; signifciant increases in youth participation particularly, the best Commonwealth Games ever for the England Team, including a Gold medal in the Mixed Doubles event, the launch of the NBL and the publication of our new commercial programme which resulted in the largest sponsorship investment in Badminton England’s history.

But it is people who make this happen – our fantastic staff, our talented players, our superb partners and sponsors and our amazing volunteers. The award didn't just recognise our achievements but the contribution from every person connected with English badminton.

Did you and the team celebrate accordingly on the night?

The BT Sport Industry Awards is an amazing celebration of our industry and a wonderful environment to celebrate our success. It was great to see so many people celebrating with us both at the Awards event itself and the comments we were seeing on social media from our partners, players, members, members of the media etc. I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone for their messages of congratulations.

Will you take some time out to celebrate the award at Badminton England HQ?

I was away from the office the day after but we got all of our HQ staff together on the Monday after the Award so that I could thank them all personally for their contribution to the great year we had. It is always important to recognise the efforts of people who make Awards such as this possible.

While success at elite level is obviously a barometer for the NGB success, what milestones have you achieved at a grassroots level to ensure this momentum continues?

In recent years we have seen a huge increase in people playing badminton and the grass roots of our sport will always feature as one of our key strategic priorities.

I think what we have done really well since London 2012 is position our sport in a way that has excited people. Our SmashUp! Programme was developed by young people, for young people. We considered carefully what the ‘customer’ was telling us and we delivered it. The increase of 70,000 people last year was in part a consequence of that approach.

The NBL has really connected locally. World class players, an exciting format, great sports presentation; all factors that have brought a new audience, not just to watch but into the community programmes each of the Teams are delivering. The NBL is very much part of our growth strategy in the years to come.

We have also seen an explosion in the number of young people taking part in our National Schools Championships – 35,000 players, 6,500 teams, 1,500 schools. These young people are the future of our sport and its vital that we find ways to keep them playing badminton.

Badminton England recently developed a volunteer strategy. How has that changed things?

It’s really too early to say but the intentions are absolutely sound.
For any sport to be sustainable, it simply must invest in recruiting and retaining volunteers. We have 52,000 across the breadth of roles in our sport and we know that as English badminton continues to grow, so must our volunteer base and as that base grows, its even more important that we show our value by recognising the enormous contribution they make. Quite simply, sport in this country, at any level, couldn’t happen without volunteers.

You’re committed to having a 25% male:female Board ratio by 2017, how important is it that NGBs and their Boards become more diverse in terms of their gender and skills sets?

We are committed to having a balanced Board but I’m not a fan of quotas. The female members of our Board are there because they contribute enormously to our debate and our decision making process, not simply because they are women.

We have a great culture inside Badminton England to promote inclusivity across every area of our work and it is this culture that will bring more and more women forward to our Boards and committee structures. But our female Board members are there on merit and that is always important.

Diversity on Boards is absolutely the right mindset as far as I’m concerned, not just on gender or age but also on the social demographic contribution that can be achieved. Having a Board full of one particular demographic is likely to take the debate in only one direction. Badminton is played by people right across the age spectrum, across both genders and across a range of backgrounds. Our Board should reflect that.

This year saw the creation of the first professional badminton league in the UK, do you feel developing a professional league will help increase awareness and commercial opportunities for the sport?

I hope so, that is part of our plan for the NBL. The NBL offers an additional commercial asset to Badminton England – we have a great TV partner, we are achieving some fantastic viewing numbers on TV in the UK and around the World as well as a great digital platform. And we are talking to more and more people about the League and the community access it is also delivering.

So it is increasing awareness and it is providing a platform in which brands can connect with a huge amount of people. Our challenge is finding the brand – when we do, they will enjoy a great journey with us.

What’s your philosophy as a CEO?

otEnjoy what I do!
otBe focused in what I do and what our organisation is wanting to achieve
otBe ambitious for myself, my staff and my organisation
otDon’t be afraid to make courageous decisions
otBuild a great team that creates an inspiring place to work
otListen to what our members and customers want

What’s the one piece of advice would you give to NBGs looking to provide you with some competition next year?

That’s really difficult to answer because while there are some real synergies between NGBs, we all have our own objectives to achieve.

But a key part of my philosophy is about being ambitious. You never get everything right, but you achieve nothing without trying. You never know what is possible.

What are the challenges you’ll be looking to meet as an NGB over the next twelve months?

To be honest, we won’t do too much different to what we are doing right now. This is a journey and as long we are always making progress, I cannot ask for, or expect, too much more.
We have a really exciting group of talented young players and so of course are looking ahead to Rio 2016. We are also building the longevity of our system so that we can compete consistently at a high level. This takes time but the progress is encouraging.

We have also made great strides to enable more people to play badminton more often and our efforts will continue to excite even people to either play for the first time or to come back to the sport.

We do need to work more around the primary age sector, providing more opportunities for young people in schools, quality teacher training and the routes to community badminton for them. Somewhere in our primary schools right now is a potential future champion and many many more who will enjoy badminton as a great habit for life.

Off court, we will be focus on the maturity of our data strategy, presenting a modernised membership offer that reaches far beyond just the 50,000 people that play in our clubs but one that can reach the near 1 million people that play every month and continuing to seek the commercial partners who can come on this amazing journey with us.

So after a great year, I am just as excited and just as ambitious for the period ahead.

Finally, where will the award live?

It takes pride of place in the trophy cabinet in our main reception where all our staff and visitors can keep an eye on it!

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