The Return of the Nomad

Alistair McLean
By Loose Head
May 26 2002

It's all new at Wasps. A fairly new DoR, moving to a new ground and now to strengthen the commercial side of the club a new Cheif Executive.

A welcome to our new chief executive Alistair McLean - no not the one who wrote all those books. It is really a welcome back, Alistair having played for the Nomads for 10 years (the Nomads were one of the 14 odd sides that Wasps put out each week). His appointment shows that the organisation of London Wasps is now significantly different to only a few months ago.

On the departure of Nigel Melville, we were left wondering if Warren Gatland would take over Nigel's multitude of roles - which seemed to include ordering the loo roles - or would he be sticking to the rugby. Clearly the latter has transpired, with commercial management and administration being installed to run the organisation. In recent months Gloria Sennit was appointed Operations executive and Caroline Winter the Customer Relations Manager, as well as Alistair as CEO: all new positions. The roles used to be performed in part at least by Loftus Road plc people, but there was always a lack of a Wasps focus - hardly surprising when the football side of the company was haemorrhaging the sort of cash that would buy you a Manchester United player.

So now as a separate entity we have our own commercial management and our own marketing - both thinking about Wasps and not a floundering football team - and now a Chief Exec focussed on London Wasps. So what sort of person is Alistair McLean?

He is a very approachable and likeable person. His background might lead someone to expect a much more brusque person. He has a good c.v. interestingly devoid of sports management experience but heavy on commercial experience. Should that be a concern? Not in itself in my opinion, a bright and commercially aware business man (or woman for that matter) can operate in a new business arena given the opportunity. It is good that he played the game for so long in the amateur days. He will know at heart what a rugby club is all about.

I expect he would have preferred a quiet summer to get to know the ropes before the new season. Never mind, eh? Player contracts up for renegotiation and a move to a new ground. Still, coming from a sales & marketing background in FMCG (that's high volume products to you and me, "Fast Moving Consumer Goods") he should be used to a bit of stress from time to time.

Loose Head