Nick Pontefract

Nick Pontefract is the Chief Strategy Officer at Sport England, the government body responsible for promoting and investing in sport and physical activity in England. Nick has been at Sport England since 2018, leading the development of their new strategy, the organisation’s response to, and recovery from, the Covid-19 pandemic, helping deliver the highest recorded levels of sports participation in England. 

Before that, Nick spent 15 years in the Civil Service in a variety of roles, including as the senior civil servant responsible for sport in government. He was responsible for the government’s sports strategy published in 2015 which signalled a shift away from traditional sport, and led the team that won the bid to host the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022. 

Nick grew up in Yorkshire but now lives on the Kent coast with his wife and two children.