The FA's Management Team, working together with The FA Board, Council and staff, aims to deliver an effective and professional organisation for the greater good of English football. The FA consists of a permanent staff, based at Wembley Stadium and St. George's Park.
Senior Management Team
Mark Bullingham
Chief Executive Officer
Mark was named as The FA’s Chief Executive Officer on 1 August 2019.
Mark joined The FA in August 2016 and previously led the commercial, marketing, digital and participation functions at the organisation, where under his tenure annual revenue at The FA rose by over £100m.
He previously held the position of CEO EMEA for Fuse Sports & Entertainment, responsible for running one of the fastest growing businesses in the sector. The team had grown quickly over five years to 245 across 17 offices with an annual fee income of over €28m. The client portfolio included ten of the top 30 global brands.
Mark joined Fuse in 2011 from his position as Director of Marketing for the America’s Cup Event Authority in San Francisco, where he helped transform the global event.
Mark has negotiated over $2bn of partnerships across a variety of platforms in sports, arts and music and is a qualified Level One coach involved in grassroots football.
Andy Ambler
Director of Professional Game Relations
Andy joined The FA in the autumn of 2016, following a nine-year spell as chief executive at Millwall Football Club.
He took up newly-created strategic role to strengthen relationships with the professional game in line with its four-year strategic vision to provide trusted regulation and efficient administration.
A key focus for Andy is to develop positive engagement and collaborative working across the Premier League, English Football League and their clubs, as well as those organisations representing players, managers and supporters.
Andy previously spent time at Fulham, and also served on the Football League board.
Les Reed
Technical Director
Les joined The FA in February 2019 as Technical Director, and is responsible for all elite England men’s sides from development teams through to the seniors. He also oversees the work of FA Education, with its objective of helping to grow the number of qualified and appropriately-skilled coaches, and the wider work of the national football centre including sports science and medicine.
Previously, in more than three decades in coaching roles, he also notably worked at Charlton Athletic, Fulham and Southampton, where he had responsibility for all football matters as vice-chairman.
Reed has previously worked for The FA in two spells. Firstly between 1986 and 1995 in various coaching capacities that included travelling to the 1990 World Cup. He then held various technical roles between 1998 and 2004, with the latter two years as technical director.
During that time, Reed amassed plenty of experience around the international set-up, particularly working with development teams and travelling far and wide to further his knowledge and expertise. He also spent time working alongside illustrious coaches like Sir Bobby Robson, Don Howe, Dave Sexton and Kevin Keegan.
As a highly-regarded coach educator, Reed has authored coaching manuals and was an original designer of the current UEFA Pro Licence.
Rachel Brace
Human Resources Director
Rachel joined The FA from England Rugby 2015, the tournament organisers for World Cup.
She was one of the early members of the team responsible for building and mobilising a workforce of over 6000 people and prior to that she was the head of HR operations for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
She joined that team in 2007 and was a key player in the organisation’s journey from small-to-big and transforming itself from an HQ in London to a multi-venue world-class sporting event.
The first half of Rachel’s career was spent in retail, namely Marks and Spencer, where she gained some very valuable skills and experience through the changing times of another national institution, particularly in her last role as head of HR for the clothing division.
Mark Burrows
Chief Operating Officer
Mark joined the FA on an interim basis in March 2016 before his appointment was made permanent in December.
Prior to joining the FA, Mark held senior finance roles with BSkyB, Virgin Mobile, the Iglo Group and most recently he was the Group CFO for Virgin Active. Mark qualified as a chartered accountant with PwC.
Baroness Campbell CBE
Director of Women's Football
Sue was appointed Head of Women’s Football with The Football Association in March 2016, and became Director of Women’s Football in January 2018.
Among many honours, Sue has received 11 honorary doctorates and in June 2003, Sue was awarded a Commander of the British Empire for her services to sport.
In April 2005 she was appointed as Chair for UK Sport, following 18 months as the Reform Chair. Sue held this position for two terms until April 2013, where she presided over Team GB and Paralympic GB’s incredible performance at the London 2012 games.
In December 2008 Sue was appointed to the House of Lords as an independent Crossbench Peer. Sue was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2012 Sunday Times Sportswomen of the Year Awards.
Craig Donald
Chief Information Officer
Craig joined The FA in July 2018, and has responsibility for the entire Information Technology estate.
With degrees in Philosophy and Theology, Craig started his career in IT support for a global software company, gaining his first management role less than eight months later. He has since worked in IT management across many industries including defence, software & hardware manufacturing, and global multi-channel distribution. Most recently Craig spent six years in the aviation industry, firstly managing the entire application estate for Virgin Atlantic and subsequently operations & corporate systems for easyJet.
Outside of work, Craig is a keen scuba diver, is passionate about health & fitness and spends many evenings enjoying London’s theatre scene.
Polly Handford
Legal & Governance Director
Polly first joined The FA in 2014 as head of legal, a role in which she worked for two years before being appointed to her current position as director of legal and governance in October 2016. Previously, Polly had experience in the sporting world during her role as deputy head of legal for the RFU, where she spent three years working at Twickenham.
Edleen John (FCIPD)
International Relations, Corporate Affairs and Co-Partner for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Edleen John (FCIPD) was appointed in September 2020. She started her career as an investment banker at Lehman Brothers working in debt capital markets and has held a variety of revenue-generating and support-function permanent roles across the financial services sector including insurance broking at Lloyd's of London, graduate recruitment at Nomura, vice president at Morgan Stanley and as a director and the co-head of inclusion, diversity and social equality at KPMG.
Besides her day job, Edleen is a school governor at a community special school for young people with severe and profound disabilities, a director of tech talent Charter organisation, an international trustee for restless development charity and sits on the DIAL Global advisory board and the advisory board for the McKenzie-Delis. Packer Review.
Edleen has a number of accolades to her name including being a ‘We Are The City’ rising star in HR and recruitment; a Yahoo! Finance EMpower Top 100 ethnic minority future leader; a top ten BAME inspirational leader and a shortlisted National Diversity award winner for a Positive Age Role model.
Kelly Simmons MBE
Director of Women's Professional Game
Kelly Simmons MBE took up the new role of Director of the Women’s Professional Game in September 2018 to help deliver and transform professional women’s football in England. She oversees The FA Women’s Super League, FA Women’s Championship, FA Women’s National League and the Women’s Pyramid of Football.
She was previously The FA Director of Participation and Development, overseeing the implementation of a £200m four year investment programme into children’s and grassroots football.
Kelly was awarded an MBE in 2002 for Services to Football and received the BT Sports Industry Award for ‘Leadership in Sport’ in 2016.
Kathryn Swarbrick
Commercial and Marketing Director
Kathryn joined English football’s governing body in November 2019, having spent the last seven years at PepsiCo, most recently as Vice President of Marketing across Europe and South Africa. Prior to this she was UK Marketing Director at PepsiCo. She has an exceptional track record of delivering strong commercial results, successful brand campaigns, and building high performing teams.
With over twenty years of experience across senior marketing and sales roles, for businesses like Heineken and Diageo within UK and International markets. She will now sit on The FA’s senior management team, reporting to CEO Mark Bullingham.
She will be responsible for the commercial and marketing strategy across the entire FA portfolio. This includes the 29 England teams, Wembley Stadium connected by EE, the Emirates FA Cup, the FA Barclays Women’s Super League, and the Women’s FA Cup. This will cover broadcast, sponsorship, events, licensing, merchandising, hospitality and all digital content and social channels amongst various other elements.
James Kendall
Director of Football Development
James joined The FA in September 2019. He is responsible for grassroots football which includes our work in developing the game across male, female and disability football; harnessing the club network and facility infrastructure across the country; working closely with the County FA’s to support delivery of football in their county’s; and ensuring The FA’s digital ecosystem is developed to provide for the administrative needs of the game.
James has spent nearly 25 years in the sports industry working in a number of senior strategy and commercial roles. Prior to joining The FA, he worked in two stints for Portas Consulting, a global management consultancy dedicated to sport and physical activity, where he was the Partner responsible for its London office and European business. During this time he led multiple projects for International Federations, National Governing Bodies and corporate businesses - principally around participation and social impact - including for The FA and UEFA.
Between his times at Portas, he was Commercial Director at Harlequins Rugby Club and has previously worked for BSkyB, Volvo Cars and the Volvo Ocean Race.
Louisa Fyans
Director of Communications
Louisa is the Director of Communications at The Football Association, overseeing all communications activities including the England Elite, campaigns and media relations teams. She joined from sports marketing and PR agency Pitch, where she held the role of Director for more than four years.