EVP – Operations Transformation — Sports-Media Business

The mandate

This sports-media business attracts subscribers around scarce live events. Those moments create its strongest acquisition and engagement, but also expose concentrated operational weaknesses. Playback demand rises abruptly; rights and location rules can deny legitimate viewers; account and payment defects surface minutes before start; support queues peak when the outcome cannot be replayed. Service recovery after an event rarely restores the value a customer expected in that moment.

The group is creating an EVP – Operations Transformation role to rebuild the event-to-subscriber operating system. The executive will own transformation across event readiness, streaming operations, entitlement and identity, customer care, incident coordination, partner performance and operational economics. Production, technology, rights and commercial executives retain their functional authority. The EVP must make them work through one readiness standard and one customer consequence.

This urgent appointment is not another reliability programme confined to infrastructure. The board wants a leader who understands that schedule, rights data, offer configuration, device support, payment and communications are part of the live service. They must improve subscriber economics by reducing failure demand and preventable refunds while protecting the distinctive experience that justifies the subscription.

Scope and operating context

Based onsite in London, the role influences approximately 600 employees and material partners across the United Kingdom and a wider international region. The perimeter includes streaming operations, service management, customer support, entitlement operations, quality, vendor coordination, workforce planning and transformation delivery. Critical interfaces reach into live production, rights, scheduling, product, engineering, distribution, payments, marketing, data, legal and communications.

Events vary in operational risk. A routine replay and a championship final may use the same platform but require different capacity, command and customer protections. International rights create territory, blackout, language and distribution variation. Start times can move, events can overrun and simultaneous fixtures compete for production and platform resources.

Subscriber cohorts also behave differently. Some join for one event, others follow a season, team or sport, and bundled customers may not have a direct billing relationship. The transformation must connect operational failure to cohort value without deciding that short-tenure customers deserve weaker service.

First-year agenda

The first eight weeks will reconstruct a representative set of high-audience events from schedule confirmation through post-event stabilisation. The EVP will examine production feeds, rights and entitlement configuration, capacity forecast, release change, device performance, payment, support contacts, incidents, refunds and cancellations. The review should reveal where each function appeared ready while the combined journey was not.

An event criticality model will then set proportionate readiness. Factors will include audience forecast, subscriber value, rights complexity, device mix, production novelty, partner dependency, concurrency, acquisition campaign and recovery options. High-criticality events will require an integrated readiness record, named command, rehearsed scenarios, change controls and executive acceptance of unresolved exposure.

Entitlement accuracy will receive dedicated action. Rights, product and identity records must translate into a clear viewing decision by customer, plan, location and device. The team will analyse false denials, inappropriate access, repeated login and activation delay. Customer-facing explanations must distinguish a genuine rights restriction from a technical defect and offer the appropriate route without exposing contractual detail.

Capacity and performance testing will become scenario-based. Forecasts will consider simultaneous fixtures, late audience surges, promotional acquisition, advertising load and partner traffic. Tests will cover playback start, concurrency, authentication, stream switching, subtitles or commentary and degraded modes. The EVP will require evidence that critical dependencies can recover within the event window, not only eventually.

Customer operations will be designed around the clock of live sport. Digital diagnostics, status communication and self-service can reduce avoidable contact, while critical cases need skilled real-time support. Staffing and partner capacity will reflect event risk and geography. Advisers should know when a problem is individual, regional or systemic and what remedy they may offer without lengthy approval.

Incident command will combine production, technology, rights, product, customer and communications evidence. Decisions about restart, alternate feed, entitlement override, message and remedy will have predetermined authority. Public updates must be verified and timely. After an event, customer recovery will consider the lost experience, not only minutes unavailable.

Failure economics will inform priorities. The team will connect defects to contacts, refunds, credits, cancellations, payment disputes, reputation and engineering effort. Recurrent entitlement or device failures may deserve priority over a visible feature with uncertain value. Savings from contact reduction will be validated against customer outcome so deflection is not mistaken for resolution.

Partners providing content delivery, cloud capacity, identity, payment or contact-centre services will be governed against event obligations. Contracts will address surge, evidence, incident coordination and exit. The EVP will conduct joint exercises and change providers where chronic opacity prevents responsible readiness.

By year-end, the business should demonstrate stronger high-risk event readiness, fewer preventable viewing denials, faster verified communication and reduced refund and cancellation caused by operations. The operating model should function without a bespoke executive rescue for every major fixture.

Leadership responsibilities

The EVP will lead the transformation office and chair critical-event readiness and learning reviews. They will provide the group sponsor with a single view of unresolved exposure and customer consequence. Functional leaders remain accountable for their controls, while the EVP owns integration and escalation.

They will build an operating culture that surfaces weak evidence before an event. Teams must be able to distinguish prudent concern from habitual veto and close actions with a testable result. After failure, the executive will protect honest learning while holding repeated non-ownership to account.

The role will also establish workforce and succession depth for event command, entitlement operations and customer response. Knowledge cannot remain concentrated among employees whose informal intervention is required whenever audience stakes rise.

Measures of success

The executive committee will track playback starts, failure and rebuffering by event and device; entitlement accuracy; incident duration within the event window; support demand; refunds; payment disputes; and operations-driven cancellation. Measures will be segmented by criticality and cohort, with absolute customer impact shown beside percentages.

Readiness health includes evidence completion, scenario results, late changes, unresolved exceptions, partner participation and action recurrence. Economic outcomes include cost per event and subscriber, failure demand, contact resolution and retained contribution after remedy. Activity volume alone will not prove transformation.

Candidate profile

Candidates should bring 22–28 years in live media, streaming, sports operations, digital platforms, payments or another time-critical customer service. They must have led high-concurrency operations and a cross-functional transformation that improved customer and economic outcomes. Direct experience commanding material live incidents is essential.

The board will seek examples of correcting entitlement failure, changing readiness after a compound exercise and redesigning service recovery for an experience that could not simply be delivered later. Candidates should understand streaming architecture, live production dependencies, rights logic, identity, customer operations and supplier governance.

The successful EVP will be calm under event pressure and unsparing about preparation. They must earn trust from producers and engineers, recognise the emotional value of sport to customers and translate technical performance into operational priorities and board choices.

Compensation and appointment terms

Base compensation is expected between GBP 250,000 and GBP 340,000, with annual incentive and long-term participation. Reward will balance event stability, subscriber outcomes, operating economics, partner performance and leadership depth. Final terms will reflect comparable live-service scale, international exposure and verified forfeited awards.

Confidentiality

The business is unnamed because rights schedules, platform weaknesses, subscriber behaviour and supplier dependencies are sensitive. Detailed event and service information will follow identity, conflict and confidentiality review. Applicants must not submit protected incident records, subscriber data, rights rules or vendor performance material from another organisation.