Big moments. High standards. Proven Delivery.
Major Venue and Event Operations
As Director of Operations at Headingley Stadium, Sam was responsible for delivering some of the most high-profile fixtures in world cricket, ensuring that every operational element — from ticketing to safety, guest experience to facilities — was planned, coordinated, and executed to the highest standard.
Sam represented the Club at all Safety Advisory Group (SAG) meetings, with regular attendance from the Sports Ground Safety Authority (SGSA). These sessions involved reviewing past fixtures, planning for upcoming events, updating safety and security documentation, and satisfying all requirements from blue light services, including Counter Terrorism measures. Without the above, the safety certificate would not be authorised.
In the build-up to major matches, Sam chaired pre-season and pre-event planning meetings, strategising, facilitating cross-departmental alignment, and communicating actions to ensure full operational readiness. Post-event debriefs captured lessons learned and drove continual improvement for future fixtures.
For international events, Headingley operated a lockdown period before gates opened to ensure no unauthorised personnel, vehicles, or equipment entered site. Balancing safety with budgetary pressures, Sam maintained security standards without compromising protection or operational integrity.
Drawing on his early career experience managing the Ticket Office, Sam led the digital transformation of the Club’s ticketing platform, recruiting and training a high-performing customer-facing team. His involvement in ticketing and membership strategy over 14 years contributed to repeated domestic and international sell-out fixtures and exemplary customer satisfaction.
To minimise disruption to the local area, Sam worked closely with the local authority’s highways department to manage travel and transport. This included introducing park-and-stride schemes, securing temporary parking, and promoting public transport through Club communications.
Stadium presentation was a key part of the guest experience, and Sam maintained close communication with third-party facilities management and waste providers to ensure Headingley was clean, safe, and fit for purpose — not just at the start of a five-day Test match, but every day.
High-profile fixtures relied heavily on third-party providers, from catering to hospitality and retail. Sam ensured all partners were fully briefed with up-to-date operational information and that service level agreements and key performance indicators were aligned to deliver exceptional customer service and client satisfaction.
Commercial Growth and Income Diversification
Across his career, Sam has delivered significant commercial growth by diversifying income streams, enhancing guest experience, and optimising operational performance across multiple revenue channels.
At Chester Zoo, with a £18.3m income portfolio under his remit, Sam oversaw food and beverage, retail, visitor operations and events, ensuring each channel was both commercially competitive and operationally efficient. He oversaw a data-led approach to menu engineering, retail merchandising, and pricing strategy, maximising per-capita spend without compromising visitor value.
Secondary spend was a central focus, with Sam introducing new F&B concepts, pop-up retail experiences, and seasonal activations to drive incremental revenue. This included aligning product ranges with events and exhibitions, creating themed offers, and leveraging high footfall periods for maximum impact.
Guest experience remained at the heart of all commercial decisions. By integrating customer journey mapping into planning, Sam identified friction points and revenue opportunities, from queue management to upsell prompts. These insights informed everything from point-of-sale layout to staffing models, ensuring that commercial operations enhanced — rather than interrupted — the visitor day.
At Headingley, Sam’s strategic involvement in ticketing and membership sales spanned over 14 years, contributing to multiple sell-out domestic and international fixtures. This experience combined operational oversight with commercial acumen, ensuring ticket sales, hospitality packages, and ancillary offers worked in harmony to maximise stadium revenue.
Whilst refining ticket and membership strategies, he contributed towards dynamic pricing models, optimising online sales funnels, and launching targeted membership campaigns that increased retention and acquisition. By aligning ticketing with broader guest experience initiatives, he ensured commercial targets supported the organisation’s mission and brand.
By taking a holistic, cross-departmental approach, Sam ensured that every touchpoint — whether a coffee cart on a match day or an annual membership campaign — contributed to both the financial sustainability and the brand experience of the organisation.
Capital Projects and Infrastructure
Sam has led a broad range of capital projects designed to enhance the fan, player, and stakeholder experience while maintaining operational continuity in complex, live environments.
At The Yorkshire County Cricket Club, he oversaw the delivery of major facility upgrades across Headingley Stadium, ensuring projects were planned, implemented, and handed over in ways that met budgetary, operational, and accessibility goals.
2019 marked a monumental year in cricket that included the completion and mobilisation of the Howard Stand. A dual purpose facility overlooking both Headingley Cricket Ground and Leeds Rugby, this project increased capacity and improved the match day and non match day offering that targeted commercial growth.
Other key developments included the creation of a multi-faith room and sensory room, providing inclusive spaces for diverse visitor needs, alongside the installation of a Changing Places facility to improve accessibility for guests with complex disabilities.
Sam also delivered a stadium-wide signage project, streamlining wayfinding for match days and events, and oversaw the procurement and installation of a replay screen system, enhancing the in-bowl experience for fans and broadcasters alike. Behind the scenes, he led dressing room refurbishments to meet international standards and spearheaded hospitality suite upgrades, ensuring facilities matched the premium expectations of corporate partners and VIP guests.
Beyond the Headingley footprint, Sam successfully took elite cricket to outgrounds such as York and Scarborough. This required temporary infrastructure planning, from seating and catering units to broadcast and media facilities, all while meeting the same safety, spectator, and player welfare standards expected at a Test venue.
At Chester Zoo, Sam was the lead point of contact for the new Heart of Africa Zone and chaired the mobilisation meetings for all departments across the organisation. He played a key role in the strategic development plan ensuring that EDI facilities in particular were captured as part of the program to ensure Chester Zoo remained a welcoming attraction for everyone.
These projects reflect Sam’s ability to deliver capital investment programmes that blend strategic vision with operational excellence, ensuring new facilities are not only functional from day one but also deliver long-term commercial, experiential, and reputational value.
Interim Board and Advisory
As Director of Operations at both Yorkshire County Cricket Club and Chester Zoo, Sam attended board meetings, providing operational insight and producing detailed board reports that supported strategic decision making. These reports combined headline KPIs with on-the-ground context, ensuring the board understood not only what was happening, but why, and what action was needed.
At Headingley, this meant translating the operational reality of delivering sold-out international cricket fixtures into board-level summaries—covering ticketing performance, guest experience measures, safety and security compliance, and the status of major projects such as the £42m Howard Stand redevelopment. He provided regular updates on Safety Advisory Group discussions, capital works progress, and any operational risks that required governance oversight.
At Chester Zoo, Sam’s reports connected operational delivery to the zoo’s broader conservation and visitor engagement objectives. Board updates covered everything from commercial performance in F&B and retail, to the operational readiness of new visitor facilities, to the impact of weather and seasonality.
In both settings, Sam’s role was to give the board the confidence that operations were being run safely, efficiently, and in line with strategic priorities—while also surfacing issues early enough for proactive solutions. His ability to present complex operational information clearly and concisely ensured that leadership teams could make informed, timely decisions.