Mark Devlin appointed permanent Chief Executive at Huddersfield Town

EFL Sky Bet Championship side, Huddersfield Town AFC, has confirmed that Mark Devlin has been appointed as the Club’s permanent Chief Executive, following a stint as interim CEO.

Mark has been Huddersfield Town’s interim Chief Executive since 13 January 2020 and will continue his role on a permanent basis.

Mark is an experienced sports administrator with a proven track record across 20+ years of working in senior positions at several football clubs, most recently with fellow Sky Bet Championship side Brentford and League of Ireland champions Dundalk.

HTTV caught up with Mark Devlin to discuss his time at Huddersfield Town so far:

I’ve really enjoyed my time here so far. I think I’ve said previously in a couple of interviews, the Club is bigger than I anticipated; the number of Season Card holders and staff, particularly over at Canalside, and you can see the great set-up at the Training Ground.

 

Everyone has been very welcoming. I had no idea what sort of welcome a Londoner would receive in Yorkshire, and I’m delighted to say without exception it’s been very warm and friendly.

 

It’s great that the Chairman has asked me to stay on. I’m excited and privileged to be able to work with everyone at the Club to take us forward.

With the importance of the role in the Football Club, Mark explained how he got to understand Huddersfield Town as a club and operationally:

It’s important to come in with an open mind, not pre-conceived ideas. My approach is to give myself at least three months, 100 days, to meet with everyone individually and as groups to go through numbers and strategy documents, to get my feet on the ground to understand the people, the culture and values of the Club.

 

The Chairman’s been around almost a year and he’s got some values he wanted to introduce, and I think they’re spot on for this club.

After being at the Club since January, Mark detailed what he’s been focusing on so far:

The Training Ground was ongoing, there were a lot of loose ends with it, but it’s nearly complete. There’s still some work to do when the contractors can come back on-site.

 

It will be one of the best training complexes outside the Premier League. Huddersfield Town will have a training facility we can be very proud of. The place of work we’ve provided for the players and the skills we have down there will be excellent.

 

I’ve been working on the football side on how we can make the Training Ground better and the structure of our football department, so looking at how we can be better resourced and smart in the way we operate there.

 

Away from football, I’ve been looking at how we can generate more revenue into the Club. Particularly, when you don’t own the Stadium. We have to be smarter in terms of our commercial output. We are losing our Commercial Director in the next month or so, we are in the process of recruiting someone to fulfil that role. I can see us working better with our commercial partners going forward.

 

Looking at our fanbase, delivering our content output, we have to be incredibly smart at all of these. I’ve been working all the way across the board. We now have to use the time we’ve got in this crisis to reshape the business.

 

I’m still working on those plans at the moment as we are potentially looking at bringing in no revenue until the end of this year, in terms of potentially playing football in stadiums with no fans.

Mark also discussed the COVID-19 situation, the future of football and Huddersfield Town financially.

Watch the full interview below on #HTTV…

Images & video, courtesy: Huddersfield Town

Source: https://www.htafc.com/news/2020/may/mark-devlin-appointed-permanent-ceo/

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