The Summer of Sport

Rachael is a Partner at Level and is the first female Chair of the Pro Manchester Sports Committee. She is an experienced disputes lawyer across sport, media and entertainment with a specialist practice in defamation, privacy, media crisis and reputation management, which she has handled at the highest level for newsworthy clients against national and international media outlets. Whilst naturally most of her work is confidential, her work over the years has included advisory services to a broad range of clients including topflight professional footballers (PL, EFL, WSL), football and rugby clubs, sporting organisations and individuals and managers working across football, golf, boxing, athletics and rugby, well-known actors, musicians, newsworthy OBE and MBE recipients and individuals in official public roles. As part of her work, she has regularly considered and handled EDI and reputational issues in sport as part of her practice.

Having worked for Manchester City Council for nearly 24 years, Yawar has seen the City transformed by investment levered through sport. With experience in both Sports Development and more recently leading the Major Sports Events Team, he has seen how sport can be a catalyst for positive change.

Jen Barden is Managing Director of Lancashire Cricket Foundation, the charitable arm of Lancashire Cricket and the recreational Governing body across the County. Having spent the whole of her career in cricket, from coaching in schools, to women and girls development manager and the Thunder Academy Head Coach, Jen has a wealth of industry experience. Qualified as a Level 4, ECB Master Coach with a focus on leadership followed by the Masters in Sporting Directorship from MMU, with desire to continue develop herself and others. Women’s sport is close to her heart with a career in sport, having played County cricket and seeing a number of females not progress due to a lack of opportunity, the coming 2 years across the City is really critical to inspire the next generation.