UK Sport Reappoints Two Members

Culture Secretary John Whittingdale has reappointed Lis Astall and Sarah Springman to the board of UK Sport for second terms.

Lis Astall

Lis was born in the Channel Islands and educated at Jersey Ladies College before going to the London School of Economics (LSE) where she gained a BA Hons in French, Economics and Politics. She also studied at Nice and Grenoble Universities.

Lis was with Accenture for 27 years with a series of roles – in 2006-2009 as the Managing Director for Public Service in Europe, Middle East, Africa and Latin America. Prior to this (2003-2006) Lis was UK Managing Director across all the private and public sector work in Accenture. Whilst at Accenture she also served on the UK National Employment Panel; on the Technology Board of the e-skills Council; the CBI President’s Committee and the Board of the LSE.

Since retiring she has a portfolio of Non Executive Director roles - currently at Standard Bank – Offshore Group, the Ministry of Defence - Joint Forces Command, UK Sport and Digital Jersey. She is a trustee of the Social Mobility Foundation and Chairman of a Brain Tumour Trust – the PPR Foundation.

Lis has a strong sporting interest in equitation and served as President of British Showjumping for 4 years leading up to London 2012 Olympic gold. She now leads the council of the British Equestrian Federation.

Sarah Springman CBE

Professor Sarah Springman, CBE, FREng is sportswoman and engineer. As an elite athlete, Sarah represented Great Britain in Triathlon from 1983 to 1993. During this time Sarah competed in the 1990 Commonwealth Games demonstration triathlon in Auckland, New Zealand and amassed 21 elite ETU European Championship medals in triathlon (all distances) and duathlon. From 2007-2012, Sarah was President and Chair of British Triathlon, during which time the World Triathlon Series was brought to London and medals were won by British triathletes at the London 2012 Olympic Games and at world level by the paratriathletes.

Sarah played a pivotal role as British Triathlon President and International Triathlon Union Vice-President in successfully lobbying for acceptance of triathlon onto the sport programmes of the Olympic and Commonwealth Games and the recent inclusion of paratriathlon into the Paralympic Programme. In 2013, Sarah was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Sunday Times and Sky Sports Sportswomen of the Year awards.

Sarah has been professor of geotechnical engineering at ETH Zürich since 1997 and the Deputy Head of the Institute for Geotechnical Engineering since 2007. She became Rector of ETH Zürich on 1 January 2015.