Our Directors

Our Directors lead the direction and strategy of the organisation and represent a range of different knowledge specialisms:

Dr Justine Reilly

Justine is our Founding Director. She set up Sporting Heritage in 2012 after completing a PhD investigating Sport, Museums and Cultural Policy and recognising a gap in support and advocacy for the sector.  With a degree in History and Archaeology and MA in History, Film and TV,  Justine began her career working in the TV sector at the BBC and Granada TV.  Moving across to the cultural heritage sector, Justine developed a passion for ensuring collections were relevant to audiences and held posts at National Museums Liverpool, the National Media Museum, Bradford, BBC Education, and MLA Yorkshire and National.  Justine set up her own consultancy working across a range of specialisms to support heritage organisations of all sizes before creating Sporting Heritage. An assessor for the Associateship of the Museums Association, Justine believes passionately in supporting the professional development of those working within the sector.

justine@sportingheritage.org.uk

Kevin Reilly 

Kevin is our Co-Founding Director, leads on National Sporting Heritage Day and is our communications lead. With a background in media and broadcast, Kevin began his career working at Granada TV, after completing a degree in Media Studies. He has extensive broadcast experience, enjoying over twenty years at the BBC, primarily as a television director on News, Politics and Sports programmes; most recently the Super League Show. Kevin overseas all of our communications and marketing activity.

kevin@sportingheritage.org.uk

Katie Cavanagh

Katie is an expert in collections care, management and access, and has played a key role in the development of our Sporting Heritage toolkit and e-learning modules. With extensive experience of collections management, care and access gained leading programmes at Stockport Museum, Gallery Oldham, The National Football Museum, and as a freelance specialist, Katie brings a wider range of knowledge and expertise about the role and value of collections with a sporting focus. Katie is the currently managing collections and partipcation activity at the National Coal Mining Museum.

Hugh Dan MacLennan

Hugh is a Gaelic-speaking broadcaster and academic with a wide range of experience in communications and teaching, as well as work in the public sector. A graduate of Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities, he is now a Professional Fellow at the Academy of Sport, University of Edinburgh. He was the first Sportswriter in Residence at the National Library of Scotland 2017-2018. His research and teaching interests focus mainly on Scottish sport and in particular shinty, culture and Highland emigration and communications. He has written and lectured extensively on his special interests. His first BBC radio commentary was in 1983 and since then he has been involved in commentating on rugby, shinty, football and the World Orienteering championships on radio and television. A former Board member of MG ALBA when the television channel was launched in 2008, he has won a number of awards for his Gaelic writing and journalistic work.

And we welcomed two new directors to our board at the end of 2023 – Allison Simpson and Amerdeep Panesar.