Stewart Regan Biography and Media Conference

Wednesday, 28 July 2010

Here is part one of Stewart Regan's first media conference as Chief Executive of the Scottish FA. View part two here.

Stewart Regan, 46, hails from County Durham and lives in Leeds with his wife, Nicola and their three children.

He graduated from Hull University in 1986 with an Honours degree in American Studies. He started work in the brewing industry, where he spent 16 years working for both John Smith’s Tadcaster Brewery and Bass Brewers in a variety of roles, including Sales Managing Director of Bass North and Strategic Planning Director for Bass Brewers Ltd.

Stewart was part of the management team that successfully sold Bass Brewers’ UK business to Coors, the American brewer, and this transaction effected a career change that culminated in him starting a new career in sport, initially as Director of The Football League Championship.

Stewart was responsible for the repositioning of the old ‘First Division’ and he worked with the top 24 clubs in the League to develop a very successful business model generating significant new revenue from both broadcast and sponsorship opportunities. Since the creation of The Championship, attendances have reached their highest figures for over 50 years.

In 2006, Stewart took over as Chief Executive of The Yorkshire County Cricket Club, where he has transformed one of the most famous cricket clubs in the world. The club has grown both turnover and profit in each of the last four years achieving its best ever results in 2009 on the back of the 4th npower Ashes Test match, when England played Australia at Headingley Carnegie in August of last year.

Stewart has completely restructured the business to ensure greater commercial focus and has put in place a new cricket structure to improve the ‘product’ the club are selling.

The club has continued to focus on developing home-grown talent and a pipeline of young Yorkshire players continues to flow from the Academy. In 2009, 11 of the club’s 23 contracted players were involved with Team England from under-19 to full Test squad level. At a domestic level the club regularly fields up to 10 home-grown players in the LVCC County Championship.

Stewart has led the redevelopment of the famous Headingley Cricket Ground, which has been developed in partnership with Leeds Metropolitan University and the regional development agency, Yorkshire Forward. On June 28, 2010, the club moved into the new Carnegie Pavilion, a £21m dual-use building which provides a world-class media centre, players’ facilities, premium hospitality suites and staff offices.

Today, Stewart is officially announced as the Chief Executive of the Scottish FA.