As overarching Event Director, working with the Mayor of London, Transport for London and the UK Government, I led the delivery of the Tour de France’s 2007 Grand Départ in London and the South East of the UK.
The event included an opening ceremony, the central London prologue, and Stage 1 running from London to Kent before the race continued to France.
At the time, it was without precedent in the UK. Many of the governance structures, operational templates and cross-agency models now considered standard practice had to be created.
More than 20,000 people worked on the event. Over two million attended in person. Hundreds of millions watched globally.
Its success was formally recognised in an Early Day Motion in Parliament as “an excellent showcase for the United Kingdom and its ability to stage major sporting events as London prepares to host the Olympic Games in 2012.”
It remains one of the defining demonstrations of what coordinated ambition with effective leadership can achieve at scale and established foundations for national event governance models.
